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Music

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Music

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Music

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Holly: Space weather is the field that studies how

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what's going on on the sun affects us here on the Earth--in our near space

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environment--and on the space environment on other planets. Alex: For a large

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eruption the sun produces a flash of light,

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which we call a solar flare. It also produces a huge

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ball of material traveling away from the sun we call a coronal mass ejection,

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and both of those phenomena can accelerate

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subatomic particles which we call solar energetic particles. These three

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things together make up a solar storm.

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Music. Phil: A coronal mass ejection,

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or CME, is an eruption of plasma

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from the sun that shoots out into space, and it could affect

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us here at Earth. Music.

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A solar flare is a huge release of energy

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that converts the magnetic energy of the sun

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into heat, into light, it accelerates particles,

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and can really heat up the plasma in the order of minutes to over 60 million

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Kelvin. Music.

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Solar energetic particles are particles of

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plasma that are accelerated at the flare site from the energy

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released in the flare. And these particles can be accelerated up to almost

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80 percent of the speed of light. Holly: And a coronal mass ejection. when it's

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traveling so fast, creates a shock. And that can create solar energetic

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particles. Music.

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Phil: Solar flares and CMEs are all driven by magnetic

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reconnection. This is where the sun churns up the magnetic field

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and then it causes oppositely magnetic fields to then

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annihilate. But you can't just get rid of magnetic field, you can't just get

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rid of energy, you have to convert to energy and transfer energy to other things, such as

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plasma motions--accelerating the plasma--heating up the plasma,

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and also giving out more light. Holly: But a CME

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is that material and that magnetic field line just getting thrown away from the

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sun due to this interaction. Whereas a flare is the

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close to the surface phenomena where the twisting and the snapping occur,

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and therefore you get all this heat and kinetic energy.

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