Katie,

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections often happen at the same time- in fact, the processes controlling each are very much related. When magnetic field lines interact with each other, sometimes they will join together in a very energetic event called "reconnection". Reconnection is a process that results in extremely energetic particles being released to cause a flare (also causing extremely high temperatures), and it also allows the magnetic "bubbles", or coronal mass ejections, to release from the solar surface because it effectively allows previously connected field lines to sort of escape. I've given a simplified picture here, but hopefully it provides a better understanding of the relationship between flares and coronal mass ejections.

Cheers,

Holly

Hi Katie. CMEs are often accompanied by flares, but there are also flares without CMEs and CMEs without flares. Particularly, fast and large CMEs are typically associated with a powerful solar flare. The common belief nowadays is that the initiation of CMEs and flares are reflections of the same solar phenomena, but one does not necessarily cause the other. The relationship between flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) has actually been puzzling the scientists for a long time!