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Last Post 4/12/2010 7:38 AM by Emilia Kilpua

solar storms

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4/12/2010 7:08 AM
Chris (fx1) when were solar storms first detected?

Emilia Kilpua

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4/12/2010 7:38 AM
Hi Chris! Although some consequences of solar storms are easy to see at the Earth (mainly auroras at the northern latitudes) the solar eruptions themselves are not so easy to detect. I guess the first “solar storm” that was well documented occurred in September 1, 1859 when an English astronomer Richard Carrington noticed a great and sudden brightening at the Sun while he was observing sunspots. Next day colorful auroras erupted that could be seen even at the tropical latitudes. The event Carrington had witnessed was a solar flare, a powerful eruption of energy from the Sun. It was long thought that solar flares cause magnetic storms at the Earth. It was not until 1970s when a device called coronagraph was carried onboard a spacecraft and a new type of solar eruption, coronal mass ejection (CME), was identified. The reason it took so long time to detect a CME is that they are observed in a faint corona that becomes visible only during solar eclipses. A coronagraph creates an artificial solar eclipse and allows studying the structure of the corona at all times. Nowadays it is clear that CMEs cause the majority of strong magnetic storms at the Earth. However, flares are very important class of solar phenomena as they accelerate particles to extremely high energies.