September 2017 saw a spate of solar activity, with the Sun emitting 27 M-class and four X-class flares and releasing several powerful coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, between Sept. 6-10. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation, while coronal mass ejections are massive clouds of solar material and magnetic fields that erupt from the Sun at incredible speeds.
September 2017 saw a spate of solar activity, with the Sun emitting 27 M-class and four X-class flares and releasing several powerful coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, between Sept. 6-10. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation, while coronal mass ejections are massive clouds of solar material and magnetic fields that erupt from the Sun at incredible speeds.
The activity originated from one fast-growing active region — an area of intense and complex magnetic fields — as it travelled across the Sun’s Earth-facing side in concert with the star’s normal rotation. As always, NASA and its partners had many instruments observing the Sun from both Earth and space, enabling scientists to study these events from multiple perspectives.
With multiple views of solar activity, scientists can better track the evolution and propagation of solar eruptions, with the goal of improving our understanding of space weather. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. On the other hand, depending on the direction they’re traveling in, CMEs can spark powerful geomagnetic storms in Earth’s magnetic field.
To better understand the fundamental processes that drive these events, and ultimately improve space weather forecasts, many observatories watch the Sun around the clock in dozens of different wavelengths of light. Each can reveal unique structures and dynamics in the Sun’s surface and lower atmosphere, giving researchers an integrated picture of the conditions driving space weather.
Read more at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Image: The intense solar activity also sparked global aurora on Mars more than 25 times brighter than any previously seen by NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, mission. MAVEN studies the Martian atmosphere's interaction with the solar wind, the constant flow of charged particles from the Sun. These images from MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph show the appearance of bright aurora on Mars during the September solar storm. The purple-white colors show the intensity of ultraviolet light on Mars' night side before (left) and during (right) the event. (Credit: NASA/GSFC/Univ. of Colorado/LASP)
