User highlight: flares and loops

YouTube and users losyziemi, MeireRuiz7 and goggog67 have created a wonderful series of movies that show a flaring system of loops coming from a source active region just coming round the limb of the Sun. Thanks for sharing these great movies!

Solar flares are caused by the interaction of particles accelerated by magnetic reconnection with the surrounding plasma. In the movies below, you can see bright loop-top sources filling in their supporting loops. This caused by the flare-accelerated particles striking the surrounding plasma, and heating it up; as that plasma cools down, it appears in the AIA wavebands. This event should be visible in all the other AIA wavebands (which correspond approximately to different temperatures in the solar plasma).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAA-Tw5bRys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dXWn19mk_0

Written on January 16, 2012 by jack