What is the difference between sunspots solar flares and prominences?

What is the difference between sunspots solar flares and prominences?

A typical solar flare may last from few minutes to few hours and can be observed as bright areas on the Sun. A prominence is anchored to the Sun’s surface, unlike a flare, and is often characterized by a loop shape. A prominence is bound by the Sun’s magnetic field and can last for months.

What are the three types of solar activity?

Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, high-speed solar wind, and solar energetic particles are all forms of solar activity. All solar activity is driven by the solar magnetic field.

What do we mean by solar activity What are sunspots solar flares and prominences?

Sunspots, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and solar prominences are all examples of such phenomenon. Sunspots are bubbles of cooler gas that is separated from the rest of the hot gas on the Sun’s surface by a magnetic field, this keeps them from mixing and heating up.

What are 3 characteristics of sunspots?

Sunspots are darker, cooler areas on the surface of the sun in a region called the photosphere. The photosphere has a temperature of 5,800 degrees Kelvin. Sunspots have temperatures of about 3,800 degrees K. They look dark only in comparison with the brighter and hotter regions of the photosphere around them.

What do sunspots and solar flares have in common?

What do sunspots, solar prominences, and solar flares all have in common? They all have about the same temperature. They are all strongly influenced by magnetic fields on the Sun. They are all shaped by the solar wind.

What is the cause of sunspots flares and prominences?

What is the common cause of sunspots, flares, and prominences? The helium produced from the fusion of hydrogen has less mass than the hydrogen that goes into its formation.

What causes solar activity?

It has electrically charged gases that generate areas of powerful magnetic forces. These areas are called magnetic fields. The Sun’s gases are constantly moving, which tangles, stretches and twists the magnetic fields. This motion creates a lot of activity on the Sun’s surface, called solar activity.

What causes the cycle of solar activity?

The solar cycle affects activity on the surface of the Sun, such as sunspots which are caused by the Sun’s magnetic fields. As the magnetic fields change, so does the amount of activity on the Sun’s surface. The beginning of a solar cycle is a solar minimum, or when the Sun has the least sunspots.

What is a solar flare on the Sun?

Nasa suggests that a solar flare is an “intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots.” They said that flares are the solar system’s largest explosive events and can be seen as “bright areas on the sun,” lasting from a few minutes to even hours.

How are sunspots and solar flares related to each other?

Solar Flares. The magnetic field lines near sunspots often tangle, cross, and reorganize. This can cause a sudden explosion of energy called a solar flare. Solar flares release a lot of radiation into space. If a solar flare is very intense, the radiation it releases can interfere with our radio communications here on Earth.

What kind of activity does the Sun have?

This motion creates a lot of activity on the Sun’s surface, called solar activity. Sometimes the Sun’s surface is very active. Other times, things are a bit quieter. The amount of solar activity changes with the stages in the solar cycle.

What kind of flare can you see on the Sun?

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this imagery of a solar flare, as seen in the bright flash. A loop of solar material, a coronal mass ejection (CME), can also be seen rising up off the right limb of the Sun. Solar flares are sometimes accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME for short).

What are the effects of sunspots on Earth?

1 Sunspots. Sunspots are areas that appear dark on the surface of the Sun. 2 Solar Flares. The magnetic field lines near sunspots often tangle, cross, and reorganize. 3 Effects of Solar Activity on Earth. When charged particles from a CME reach areas near Earth, they can trigger intense lights in the sky, called auroras.