NASA captures images of strong solar flares:

NASA captures images of strong solar flares:

Context

Recently, NASA recorded two high-intensity solar flares.

What are the features of these solar flares?

• Out of the two flares, the second one was more intense
• The flares were recorded since start of the sun cycle in December 2008
• The category of such solar flares is called X eruption.

How solar flares affects us?

• These radiation flares can disrupt communication satellites, GPS and power grids by reaching the upper earth atmosphere,
• These radiations also disrupt radio signals
• These X eruptions disrupted high frequency radio communications on the earth’s side facing the sun and low-frequency communications used in navigation.

What are the features of a sun cycle?

• The current cycle of the sun, which began in December 2008, saw the intensity of solar activity decline sharply, opening the way to the “solar minimum”.
• Solar cycles last on average eleven years.
• At the end of the active phase, these eruptions become increasingly rare but still can be powerful.
• Solar storms result from an accumulation of magnetic energy in some places.
• These jets of ionized matter are projected — at high speed into and beyond the crown of the sun —hundreds of thousands of kilometers outward.