New research highlights the role of the Sun’s magnetic landscape in the development of solar eruptions that can trigger space weather events around Earth.
Using data from our Solar Dynamics Observatory, scientists examined an October 2014 Jupiter-sized sunspot group, an area of complex magnetic fields, often the site of solar activity. This was the biggest group in the past two solar cycles and a highly active region. Though conditions seemed ripe for an eruption, the region never produced a major coronal mass ejection (CME) - a massive, bubble-shaped eruption of solar material and magnetic field - on its journey across the Sun. It did, however, emit a powerful X-class flare, the most intense class of flares. What determines, the scientists wondered, whether a flare is associated with a CME?
The scientists found that a magnetic cage physically prevented a CME from erupting that day. Just hours before the flare, the sunspot’s natural rotation contorted the magnetic rope and it grew increasingly twisted and unstable, like a tightly coiled rubber band.
Credits: Tahar Amari et al./Center for Theoretical Physics/École Polytechnique/NASA Goddard/Joy Nghttps://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-sdo-reveals-how-magnetic-cage-on-the-sun-stopped-solar-eruption
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