Due to the powerful flash of the sun on the earth, communication has deteriorated. Solar flare

Solar flares are unique in their strength and power of release of thermal, kinetic and light energy in the sun's atmosphere. The duration of solar flares does not exceed only a few minutes, but the colossal amount of emitted energy has a direct impact on the Earth and on you and me.

Consequences of solar flares

These processes in the sun are powerful explosions that form in the vicinity of large sunspot groups. The energy index of one outburst is approximately ten times the energy of one volcano. In this case, the sun throws out from its surface a special substance, which consists of charged particles. It has supersonic speed and, moving in interplanetary space, creates a shock wave, which, when it collides with our planet, causes magnetic storms.

The body of each of us reacts differently to solar flares. Many people "feel" them almost immediately, experiencing malaise, severe headaches, problems in the work of the cardiovascular system, as well as a violation of the psycho-emotional background: irritability, increased sensitivity and nervousness. The second group of people has a so-called "delayed reaction": they react to solar flares 2-3 days after their occurrence.

Solar flares are flashes of energy in the sun's atmosphere to which people respond in different ways.

Sick and weakened people suffering from surges in blood pressure react most sharply to flashes in the sun. It is known that on days of solar activity, the number of accidents and disasters caused by the human factor increases. The fact is that flares in the sun reduce a person's attention and dull his brain activity.

How to predict solar flares and are they harmful to humans?

The intensity of solar activity has a 28-day cycle, this figure is related to the rotation of the "hot star" around its axis. During this period, the most complex interconnection of cycles of the highest and lowest order takes place. With this fact, scientists explain the fact that flares in the sun, and as a result - magnetic storms, most often occur in March and April, as well as in September and October.

Solar activity affects the mental capacity of people. When the sun is calm, then creative people experience uplift and inspiration, and when the luminary produces flashes, people's attention is dulled, and they are in a depressed state, close to depression.

The researchers discovered an interesting fact - it turns out that earthquakes, hurricanes and typhoons are formed just at the time of solar flares. Therefore, in most cases, scientists predict these natural disasters, based on the frequency of solar flares.

What are the effects of solar flares on a person?

As a result of solar flares, the following reaction to the activity of the star is observed on Earth:

• - infrasound, which occurs at high latitudes, in the areas of the northern lights;
• - micro-pulsations of our planet, which are short-period changes in the Earth's magnetic field, it is they that negatively affect the work of the human body;
• - as a result of solar flares, the intensity of ultraviolet radiation arriving at the surface of our planet changes.

As a result of such reactions of nature to solar flares, the biorhythms of not only humans, but also all life on Earth, change.

At present, many research institutes, observatories and laboratories are engaged in the study of the effect of solar flares on the human body and our planet as a whole. Perhaps a detailed study of the behavior of the sun will help us to turn its "surprises" for our own good.

On September 1, 1859, two English astronomers - Richard Carrington and S. Hodgson, independently observing the Sun in white light, saw how something like lightning flashed suddenly among one group of sunspots. This was the first observation of a new, as yet unknown phenomenon on the Sun; later it received the name solar flare.

What is a solar flare? In short, this is the strongest explosion on the Sun, as a result of which a colossal amount of energy, accumulated in a limited volume of the solar atmosphere, is quickly released.

Flares most often occur in neutral regions. located between large spots of opposite polarity. Usually, the development of a flash begins with a sudden increase in brightness. flare platform- areas of a brighter, and therefore hotter, photosphere. Then a catastrophic explosion occurs, during which the solar plasma heats up to 40-100 million K. This is manifested in a multiple increase in the short-wave radiation of the Sun (ultraviolet and X-ray), as well as in the strengthening of the "radio voice" of the daylight and in the emission of accelerated solar corpuscles (particles) ... And in some of the most powerful flares, even solar cosmic rays are generated, the protons of which reach a speed equal to half the speed of light. These particles have deadly energy. They are capable of almost unhindered to penetrate into the spacecraft and destroy the cells of a living organism. Therefore, solar cosmic rays can pose a serious danger to a crew caught during a flight by a sudden flash.

Thus, solar flares emit radiation in the form of electromagnetic waves and in the form of matter particles. Amplification of electromagnetic radiation occurs in a wide range of wavelengths - from hard X-rays and gamma rays to kilometers of radio waves. In this case, the total flux of visible radiation always remains constant with an accuracy of fractions of a percent. ... Weak solar flares happen almost always, and large ones - every few months. But in the years of maximum solar activity, large solar flares occur several times a month. Usually a small flash lasts 5 to 10 minutes; the most powerful - several hours. During this time, a plasma cloud weighing up to 10 billion tons is thrown into the near-solar space, and energy is released equivalent to the explosion of tens, or even hundreds of millions of hydrogen bombs! However, the power of even the largest flares does not exceed hundredths of a percent of the power of the total radiation of the Sun. Therefore, with a flash, there is no noticeable increase in the luminosity of our daylight.

During the flight of the first crew on the American orbital station Skylab (May-June 1973), a flash was photographed in the light of iron vapor at a temperature of 17 million K, which should be hotter than in the center of a solar thermonuclear reactor. And in recent years, gamma-ray pulses have been detected from several flares.

Such impulses are probably due to their origin electron-positron pair annihilation... As you know, the positron is the antiparticle of the electron. It has the same mass as an electron, but is endowed with the opposite electrical charge. When an electron and a positron collide, which can happen with solar flares, they are immediately destroyed, turning into two gamma-ray photons.

Like any heated body, the Sun continuously emits radio waves. Thermal radio emission from the quiet Sun, when there are no spots and flares on it, constantly emanates from the chromosphere at millimeter and centimeter waves, and from the corona at meter waves. But as soon as large spots appear, an outburst occurs, strong radio bursts appear against the background of calm radio emission ... And then the radio emission of the Sun suddenly increases thousands, or even millions of times!

The physical processes leading to the appearance of solar flares are very complex and still poorly understood. However, the very fact of the appearance of solar flares almost exclusively in large groups of sunspots testifies to the related connections of flares with strong magnetic fields on the Sun. And the flare is, apparently, nothing more than a grandiose explosion caused by the sudden contraction of the solar plasma under the pressure of a strong magnetic field. It is the energy of the magnetic fields, somehow liberated, that generates a solar flare.
Radiation from solar flares often reaches our planet, exerting a strong effect on the upper layers of the earth's atmosphere (ionosphere). They also lead to the occurrence of magnetic storms and auroras.

Consequences of solar flares

On February 23, 1956, the stations of the Service of the Sun noted a powerful flash in the daylight. An explosion of unprecedented force threw giant clouds of incandescent plasma into the space around the sun - each many times larger than the Earth! And at a speed of more than 1000 km / s they rushed towards our planet. The first echoes of this catastrophe quickly reached us through the cosmic abyss. Approximately 8.5 minutes after the onset of the flare, the greatly increased flux of ultraviolet and X-rays reached the upper layers of the earth's atmosphere - the ionosphere, intensifying its heating and ionization. This led to a sharp deterioration and even a temporary cessation of radio communications at short waves, because instead of being reflected from the ionosphere, as from a screen, they began to be intensively absorbed by it ...

Sometimes, with very strong flashes, radio interference lasts for several days in a row, until the restless luminary "bounced back". The dependence can be traced here so clearly that the frequency of such interference can be used to judge the level of solar activity. But the main disturbances caused on the Earth by the flare activity of the star are ahead.

Following the short-wave radiation (ultraviolet and X-ray) of our planet, a stream of high-energy solar cosmic rays reaches. True, the Earth's magnetic shell reliably enough protects us from these deadly rays. But for astronauts working in outer space, they pose a very serious danger: the radiation exposure can easily exceed the permissible dose. That is why about 40 observatories of the world constantly participate in the patrol service of the Sun - they conduct continuous observations of the flare activity of the daylight.

Further development of geophysical phenomena on Earth can be expected in a day or two days after the outbreak. It is this time - 30-50 hours - required for the plasma clouds to reach the terrestrial "surroundings". After all, a solar flare is something like a space gun that shoots into interplanetary space with corpuscles - particles of solar matter: electrons, protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms), alpha particles (nuclei of helium atoms). The mass of the corpuscles emitted by the outbreak in February 1956 was billions of tons!

As soon as the clouds of solar particles collided with the Earth, the arrows of the compasses darted, and the night sky above the planet was decorated with multicolored flashes of aurora borealis. Among patients, heart attacks have sharply increased, and the number of road accidents has increased.

Why are there magnetic storms, auroras ... Under the pressure of gigantic corpuscular clouds literally the entire globe shook: earthquakes occurred in many seismic zones. And, to top it all off, the length of the day changed abruptly by as much as 10 ... microseconds!

Space exploration has shown that the earth is surrounded by a magnetosphere, that is, a magnetic shell; inside the magnetosphere, the strength of the earth's magnetic field prevails over the strength of the interplanetary field. And in order for a flare to have an impact on the Earth's magnetosphere and the Earth itself, it must occur at a time when the active region on the Sun is located near the center of the solar disk, that is, it is oriented towards our planet. Otherwise, all flare radiation (electromagnetic and corpuscular) will be swept by the side.

Plasma, which rushes from the surface of the Sun into outer space, has a certain density and is capable of exerting pressure on any obstacles in its path. Such a significant obstacle is the Earth's magnetic field - its magnetosphere. It counteracts the flow of solar matter. The moment comes when in this confrontation both pressures are balanced. Then the boundary of the Earth's magnetosphere, pressed by the flow of solar plasma from the daytime side, is set at a distance of about 10 Earth radii from the surface of our planet, and the plasma, unable to move directly, begins to flow around the magnetosphere. In this case, particles of solar matter stretch out its magnetic field lines, and on the night side of the Earth (in the direction opposite to the Sun), a long trail (tail) is formed near the magnetosphere, which extends beyond the orbit of the Moon. The Earth, with its magnetic shell, finds itself inside this corpuscular stream. And if the usual solar wind, constantly flowing around the magnetosphere, can be compared with a light breeze, then the rapid flow of corpuscles generated by a powerful solar flare is like a terrible hurricane. When such a hurricane hits the magnetic shell of the earth, it contracts even more on the sunflower side and plays out on Earth magnetic storm.

Thus, solar activity affects the earth's magnetism. With its strengthening, the frequency and intensity of magnetic storms increases. But this connection is quite complex and consists of a whole chain of physical interactions. The main link in this process is the increased flux of corpuscles that occurs during solar flares.

Part of the energetic corpuscles in the polar latitudes breaks out of the magnetic trap into the earth's atmosphere. And then, at altitudes from 100 to 1000 km, fast protons and electrons, colliding with air particles, excite them and make them glow. As a result, there is Polar Lights.

Periodic "revival" of the great luminary is a natural phenomenon. So, for example, after a grandiose solar flare, observed on March 6, 1989, corpuscular flows excited literally the entire magnetosphere of our planet. As a result, a powerful magnetic storm broke out on Earth. It was accompanied by a striking in its scope aurora borealis, which reached the tropical belt in the area of ​​the California Peninsula! Three days later, a new powerful outbreak occurred, and on the night of March 13-14, residents of the southern coast of Crimea also admired the enchanting flashes spreading in the starry sky over the rocky teeth of Ai-Petri. It was a unique sight, similar to the glow of a fire, which immediately engulfed half the sky.

On September 6, there were two powerful flares on the Sun, the second of which turned out to be the most powerful in 12 years, since 2005. This event caused disruptions in radio communications and GPS signal reception on the daytime side of the Earth, which lasted for about an hour.

However, the main challenges are yet to come.

Solar flares are catastrophic phenomena on the surface of the Sun caused by reconnection (reconnection) of magnetic field lines "frozen in" into the solar plasma. At some point, the extremely twisted lines of the magnetic field break off and reconnect in a new configuration, while a colossal amount of energy is released,

producing additional heating of the nearest parts of the solar atmosphere and acceleration of charged particles to near-light speeds.

Solar plasma is a gas of electrically charged particles and, therefore, has its own magnetic field, and the solar magnetic fields and plasma magnetic fields are coordinated with each other. When plasma is expelled from the Sun, the ends of its magnetic lines remain “tied” to the surface. As a result, the magnetic lines stretch strongly until they finally break from tension (like an elastic band that has been stretched too much) and reconnect again, forming a new configuration containing less energy - in fact, this process is called line reconnection magnetic field.

Depending on the intensity of solar flares, they are classified, and in this case we are talking about the most powerful flares - X-class.

The energy released by such flares is equivalent to the explosions of billions of megaton hydrogen bombs.

The event classified as X2.2 happened at 11:57, and even more powerful, X9.3, after only three hours - at 14:53 (see website Laboratories for X-ray Astronomy of the Sun, FIAN)

The strongest solar flare recorded in the modern era occurred on November 4, 2003, and it was classified as X28 (its consequences were not so catastrophic since the ejection was not directed directly to Earth).

Extreme solar flares can also be accompanied by powerful ejections of matter from the solar corona, the so-called coronal mass ejections. This is a slightly different phenomenon, for the Earth it can be both more and less dangerous - depending on whether the release is directed directly at our planet. In any case, the consequences of these emissions are felt in 1-3 days. We are talking about billions of tons of matter flying at a speed of hundreds of kilometers per second.

When the ejection reaches the vicinity of our planet, charged particles begin to interact with its magnetosphere, causing a deterioration in "space weather". Particles falling along magnetic lines cause auroras in temperate latitudes, magnetic storms lead to disruption of satellites, telecommunication equipment on Earth, deterioration of the conditions for propagation of radio waves, weather-dependent people suffer from headaches.

Observers, especially in high-latitude regions, are advised to keep an eye on the sky in the coming days and wait for especially majestic auroral phenomena.

In addition, the Sun itself can still give out a new focus and burst into new flares. The same sunspot group that caused the flares on Wednesday - its scientists designate it as active region 2673 - on Tuesday caused a moderate M-class flare, which is also capable of generating aurora.

However, current events are far from the so-called Carrington event - the most powerful geomagnetic storm in the entire history of observations, which broke out in 1859. From August 28 to September 2, numerous sunspots and flares were observed on the Sun. British astronomer Richard Carrington observed the most powerful of them on September 1, which probably caused a large coronal mass ejection, which reached Earth in a record time of 18 hours. Unfortunately, then there were no modern devices yet, but the consequences were obvious for everyone without it -

from intense equatorial auroras to sparkling telegraph wires.

Surprisingly, the current events are taking place against the background of a decrease in the level of solar activity, when the natural 11-year cycle ends, when the number of sunspots decreases. However, many scientists remind that it is during the period of decreased activity that the most powerful outbreaks often occur, bursting out as if at the end.

"The current events have been accompanied by intense radio emission, which indicates possible coronal mass ejections," said in an interview. Scientific american Rob Steenberg of Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). - Nevertheless, we need to wait until we receive additional images from the coronagraph, which would capture this event. Then it will be possible to give the final answer. "

In the first half of Wednesday, September 6, 2017, scientists recorded the most powerful solar flare in 12 years. The flash is assigned a score of X9.3 - the letter indicates belonging to the class of extremely large flares, and the number indicates the strength of the flash. The release of billions of tons of matter occurred almost in the region of AR 2673, practically in the center of the solar disk, so earthlings did not escape the consequences of what happened. The second powerful outbreak (score X1.3) was recorded on the evening of Thursday, September 7, the third - today, Friday, September 8.

The sun is throwing huge energy into space

Solar flares, depending on the power of X-ray radiation, are divided into five classes: A, B, C, M and X. The minimum class A0.0 corresponds to a radiation power in Earth's orbit of ten nanowatts per square meter, the next letter means a tenfold increase in power. In the course of the most powerful flares that the Sun is capable of, huge energy goes into the surrounding space, in a few minutes - about a hundred billion megatons in TNT equivalent. This is about a fifth of the energy emitted by the Sun in one second, and all the energy that humanity will produce in a million years (assuming it is produced at a modern rate).

A powerful geomagnetic storm is expected

X-rays reach the planet in eight minutes, heavy particles in a few hours, and plasma clouds in two or three days. The coronal ejection from the first flare has already reached the Earth, the planet collided with a cloud of solar plasma with a diameter of about one hundred million kilometers, although it was previously predicted that this would happen by the evening of Friday, September 8. Geomagnetic storm of the G3-G4 level (five-point scale varies from weak G1 to extremely strong G5), provoked by the first outbreak, should end on Friday evening. Coronal emissions from the second and third solar flares have not yet reached the Earth, possible consequences can be expected at the end of this week - early next week.

The consequences of the outbreak have long been understood

Geophysicists predict aurora in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, cities located at relatively low latitudes for the Aurora. In the US state of Arkansas, he has already been noticed. Back on Thursday, operators in the US and Europe reported non-critical outages. The level of X-ray radiation in near-earth orbit has slightly increased, the military clarifies that there is no direct threat to satellites and ground systems, as well as to the ISS crew.

Image: NASA / GSFC

Still, there is a danger for LEO and geostationary satellites. The former run the risk of failure due to braking on the warmed up atmosphere, while the latter, having moved 36 thousand kilometers from the Earth, may collide with a cloud of solar plasma. Interruptions to radio communications are possible, but for a final assessment of the consequences of the outbreak, it is necessary to wait at least the end of the week. The deterioration of people's well-being due to changes in the geomagnetic situation has not been scientifically proven.

Increased solar activity is possible

The last time such an outbreak was observed on September 7, 2005, but the strongest (with a score of X28) occurred even earlier (November 4, 2003). In particular, on October 28, 2003, one of the high-voltage transformers in the Swedish city of Malmö went out of order, de-energizing the entire village for an hour. Other countries were also affected by the storm. A few days before the events of September 2005, a less powerful flare was recorded, and scientists believed that the sun would calm down. What is happening in the last days bears a strong resemblance to that situation. This behavior of the star means that the 2005 record may still be broken in the near future.

Image: NASA / GSFC

However, over the past three centuries, humanity has experienced even more powerful solar flares than those that occurred in 2003 and 2005. In early September 1859, a geomagnetic storm caused the telegraph systems of Europe and North America to fail. The reason was a powerful coronal mass ejection that reached the planet in 18 hours and was observed on September 1 by British astronomer Richard Carrington. There are also studies that cast doubt on the effects of the solar flare of 1859, scientists that the magnetic storm affected only local areas of the planet.

Solar flares are hard to quantify

A consistent theory describing the formation of solar flares does not yet exist. Flares occur, as a rule, in places of interaction of sunspots on the border of regions of north and south magnetic polarities. This leads to a rapid release of the energy of the magnetic and electric fields, which then goes to heating the plasma (increasing the speed of its ions).

The observed spots are areas of the Sun's surface with a temperature of about two thousand degrees Celsius below the temperature of the surrounding photosphere (about 5.5 thousand degrees Celsius). In the darkest parts of the sunspot, the magnetic field lines are perpendicular to the surface of the Sun; in the lighter parts, they are closer to the tangent. The magnetic field strength of such objects exceeds its terrestrial value by a factor of thousands, and the flares themselves are associated with a sharp change in the local geometry of the magnetic field.

The solar flare occurred against the background of the minimum solar activity. Probably, in this way the luminary dumps its energy and will soon calm down. Similar events took place earlier in the history of the star and planet. The fact that today this is attracting public attention does not speak of a sudden threat to humanity, but of scientific progress - in spite of everything, scientists gradually better understand the processes taking place with the star, and inform taxpayers about it.

Where to monitor the situation

Information about solar activity can be gleaned from many sources. In Russia, for example, from the websites of two institutes: and (the first, at the time of this writing, posted a direct warning about the danger to satellites due to a solar flare, the second contains a convenient schedule of flare activity), which use data from American and European services. Interactive data on solar activity, as well as an assessment of the current and future geomagnetic situation, can be found on the website

Solar flare, photograph of the satellite "Hinode". Observed as two narrow, bright structures near the southern part of the sunspot.

A solar flare is an explosive process of energy release (light, heat and kinetic) in. Flares in one way or another cover all layers of the solar atmosphere: the photosphere, chromosphere and the sun's corona. It should be noted that solar flares and coronal mass ejections are different and independent phenomena of solar activity. The energy release of a powerful solar flare can reach 6 × 10 25 joules, which is about 1 ⁄ 6 of the energy released by the Sun per second, or 160 billion megatons of TNT equivalent, which, by comparison, is the approximate volume of world electricity consumption in 1 million years.

Description

The duration of the impulsive phase of solar flares usually does not exceed several minutes, and the amount of energy released during this time can reach billions of megatons in TNT equivalent. The energy of a flash is traditionally determined in the visible range of electromagnetic waves by the product of the area of ​​the glow in the hydrogen emission line Н α, which characterizes the heating of the lower chromosphere, and the brightness of this glow associated with the power of the source.

In recent years, a classification based on uniform patrol measurements on a series, mainly GOES, of the amplitude of a thermal X-ray burst in the energy range of 0.5-10 keV (with a wavelength of 0.5-8 angstroms) is often used. The classification was proposed in 1970 by D. Baker and was originally based on measurements from the Solrad satellites. According to this classification, a solar flare is assigned a point - a designation from a Latin letter and an index behind it. The letter can be A, B, C, M, or X, depending on the magnitude of the X-ray intensity peak reached by the flash:

The index specifies the value of the flash intensity and can be from 1.0 to 9.9 for the letters A, B, C, M and more - for the letter X. So, for example, an outbreak on February 12, 2010 with a score of M8.3 corresponds to a peak intensity of 8, 3 × 10 −5 W / m2. The most powerful (as of 2010) flare recorded since 1976, which occurred on November 4, 2003, was assigned a score of X28, so the intensity of its X-ray emission at its peak was 28 × 10 −4 W / m 2. It should be noted that the registration of X-ray radiation from the Sun, since it is completely absorbed by the atmosphere, became possible since the first launch of Sputnik-2 with the appropriate equipment, therefore, data on the intensity of X-ray radiation from solar flares until 1957 are completely absent.

Measurements in different wavelength ranges reflect different processes in flares. Therefore, the correlation between the two indices of flare activity exists only in the statistical sense, so for individual events one index can be high and the other low, and vice versa.

Solar flares typically occur at the interaction sites of sunspots of opposite magnetic polarity, or more precisely, near the neutral line of the magnetic field separating the regions of north and south polarity. The frequency and intensity of solar flares depend on the phase of the 11-year solar cycle.

Effects

Solar flares are of practical importance, for example, in studying the elemental composition of the surface of a celestial body with a rarefied atmosphere or in its absence, acting as an X-ray exciter for X-ray fluorescence spectrometers installed on board spacecraft.

The hard ultraviolet and X-ray emission of flares is the main factor responsible for the formation of the ionosphere, which can also significantly change the properties of the upper atmosphere: its density increases significantly, which leads to a rapid decrease in the altitude of the satellite's orbit (up to a kilometer per day).

Plasma clouds emitted during flares lead to the occurrence of geomagnetic storms, which in a certain way affect technology and biological objects.

Forecasting

The modern forecast of solar flares is based on the analysis of the solar magnetic fields. However, the magnetic structure of the Sun is so unstable that it is not currently possible to predict an outbreak even a week in advance. NASA gives a forecast for a very short period of time, from 1 to 3 days: on calm days on the Sun, the probability of a strong flare is usually indicated in the range of 1-5%, and during active periods it increases only up to 30-40%.