Key Takeaways:
- 1. New research suggests solar flare particles from the Sun are 6.5 times hotter than previously believed.
- 2. Solar flares, reaching atmospheric temperatures exceeding 10 million degrees, play a significant role in space weather and pose hazards to Earth’s infrastructure.
- 3. Advances in solar physics, prompted by observations from missions like NASA’s IRIS, are challenging long-held assumptions about the Sun’s behavior.
Recent research from the University of St Andrews reveals that solar flare particles can be significantly hotter than previously estimated, with ions reaching temperatures beyond 60 million degrees, challenging traditional beliefs about solar plasma behavior. This discovery, based on data from solar observations and computer simulations, may offer insights into a half-century-old mystery regarding the broad spectral lines produced by solar flares. As scientists continue to analyze solar data, new missions like NASA's MUSE and EUVST are expected to provide further understanding of solar flares and their impact on space weather.
Insight: Advances in solar physics, driven by high-quality observations from recent missions, are reshaping our understanding of the Sun's behavior, leading to potential breakthroughs in unraveling longstanding astrophysics mysteries related to solar flare dynamics.
This article was curated by memoment.jp from the feed source: The Debrief.
Read the original article here: https://thedebrief.org/solar-mystery-cracked-as-scientists-say-flares-may-superheat-ions-to-60-million-degrees/
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