Explanation:
Why does the Sun flare?
Unpredictably, our
Sun unleashes tremendous
flares
expelling hot gas into the
Solar
System
that can affect satellites, astronauts, and power grids on Earth.
This close up of an active region on the Sun that produced a powerful
X-class flare
was captured by the orbiting
TRACE satellite.
Clicking on the image should bring up a movie that shows the evolution of
Active Region 9906 over about four hours.
The glowing gas flowing around the relatively stable
magnetic
fieldloops above the
Sun's photosphere
has a temperature of over ten million degrees
Celsius.
These flows occurred after violently unstable
magnetic
reconnection events above the Sun produced the flare.
Many things about
solar active regions are not well
understood including the presence of
dark regions that appear to move inward during the movie.
