US EditionSpacecraft Captures the "Magnetic Avalanche" that Triggers Giant Solar Explosions
Solar Orbiter’s high-resolution data reveal a 40-minute magnetic reconnection cascade driving the flare, accelerating particles to up to 50% the speed of light, key for space weather prediction.
- On January 21, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft revealed that initially weak magnetic disturbances triggered a flare via an avalanche-like cascade recorded on 30 September 2024, unveiling the flare's central engine.
- Close-Up images showed new magnetic strands appeared nearly every image frame, roughly every two seconds, as the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager began observing at 23:06 UT, triggering rapid reconnections.
- At 23:29 UT a brightening preceded the filament's detachment and violent unrolling, while X-ray emission surged around 23:47 UT accelerating particles to 40–50% of light speed and producing raining plasma blobs.
- High-Energy X-ray mapping revealed accelerated particles deposited energy in the upper atmosphere, with reconnection events heating plasma and aiding predictions to protect satellites, aircraft and astronauts.
- These findings challenge existing theories and support the avalanche model, while Miho Janvier and David Pontin call for future high-resolution X-ray missions to refine flare understanding.
14 Articles
14 Articles
Detailed View of Solar Flare Birth Caught for the First Time
For all of its life-sustaining energy, the sun is pretty chaotic. Roiling plasma covers its surface along with fluidic snarls of magnetic fields that birth solar flares. These fiery outbursts occur when opposing magnetic field lines pinch together, detach, and reconnect to form new lines that rapidly heat up, erupting into space. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Even though scientists understand the broad, ma…
Spacecraft captures the "magnetic avalanche" that triggers giant solar explosions
Solar Orbiter has captured the clearest evidence yet that a solar flare grows through a cascading “magnetic avalanche.” Small, weak magnetic disturbances rapidly multiplied, triggering stronger and stronger explosions that accelerated particles to extreme speeds. The process produced streams of glowing plasma blobs that rained through the Sun’s atmosphere long after the flare itself.
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