According to the Xinhua News Agency, according to the National Space Weather Monitoring and Warning Center, since the beginning of this year, there have been multiple X-magnitude flares on the surface of the sun. From 7:07 a.m. on February 22 to 6:34 a.m. on February 23, in less than 24 hours, the sun has erupted three consecutive X-magnitude flares.
What is a solar flare? What do the different levels of solar flares mean? What impact will it have on the planet?
Flares are one of the two most violent eruptions in the Sun's atmosphere, which originate from the rapid release of a large amount of energy in a short period of time by the Sun's local magnetic field, including the generation of full-band radiation enhancement, matter motion, particle acceleration, etc. Gan Weiqun, chief scientist of the "solar exploration satellite" Kuafu-1 and a researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the duration of the flare ranged from a few minutes to dozens of minutes. The energy released by mega flares is even comparable to the total amount of energy released by the sun every second. According to the soft X-ray burst energy, flares are divided into five levels: A, B, C, M, and X, and the energy difference between each level is ten times, such as x1Class 0 flare ratio c1A level 0 flare is 100 times stronger.
The frequency of flares varies greatly over an 11-year period with the change of solar cycles, from several times a day during the "active period" to less than once a week on average during the "quiet period". Flares with high intensity occur much less frequently than those with low intensity, such as x10Flares above grade 0 occur less than 10 times per cycle on average, compared to m1Flares of magnitude 0 and above can occur thousands of times per cycle on average.
The "Kwafu-1" solar corona imager captured x2Level 5 flare imagery. (Photo courtesy of the "Kuafu-1" research team).
The Sun is currently in its 25th cycle, with maximums occurring between the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025. Gan Weiqun said that the extremely large mentioned here means that the number of sunspots on the sun's surface will reach a large number at that time. The sunspot region reflects the region of the strong magnetic field on the sun, and the evolution and interaction of the magnetic field lead to frequent eruptions on the sun, and the magnetic energy is converted into accelerated high-energy particles, enhanced full-band radiation, and high-speed moving plasma, which are released from the sun. Among them, the most representative phenomena are solar flares and coronal mass ejections, two of the most violent eruptions on the sun.
The public needs to be reminded that, based on past experience, some large solar eruptions can also occur 2 to 3 years after the maximum, especially some high-energy events. Therefore, we need to keep a close eye on the solar moments. Gan Weiqun said.
In addition to the magnitude of the eruption, the location of the eruption on the solar surface, whether the flare is accompanied by coronal mass ejections, and the direction of coronal mass ejections. Gan Weiqun said that the strongest x6 in recent times occurred on February 23A magnitude 3 flare, for example, occurs near the eastern edge of the Sun's solar surface and is not significantly accompanied by coronal mass ejections, so despite its high intensity, its impact on the Earth's space environment is limited.
Ordinary people do not need to be afraid of solar eruptions, extreme events are rare after all, but understanding the mechanism of their formation is conducive to understanding similar larger-scale eruptions in the universe and exploring the mysteries of the universe. Gan Weiqun said.
Reporter: Wang Juejun, Qiu Bingqing.