Unleashing a solar flare
A snapshot taken a second before a powerful M-class solar flare was unleashed from the Sun on 30 September 2024 – as seen in unprecedented detail by the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission.
The image is an excerpt from a video created from Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) images taken every two seconds leading up to the solar flare.
This frame captures the moment a dark filament of twisted magnetic field lines dripping with plasma rises from the surface. It captures the unravelling of the rope-like filament as one end (towards the bottom of the frame) becomes detached, launching into space. The unwinding closest to the connected end is recorded at 250 km/s, increasing to 400 km/s at the site of disconnection.
Bright sparks are seen all along the filament in stunning high resolution, representing sites of reconnection – where twisted magnetic field lines break apart and reconnect, creating a surge of energy.
The complete sequence of high-resolution imagery revealed that just as avalanches on snowy mountains start with the movement of a small quantity of snow, a solar flare is triggered by initially weak disturbances that quickly become more violent. This rapidly evolving process creates a ‘sky’ of raining plasma blobs that continue to fall even after the flare subsides.
Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. The EUI instrument is led by the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB).
[Image description: A close-up image of the Sun's surface, with mottled dark black and bright yellow patches. Some yellow arches and streaks of light give an impression of the Sun being very active.]
