Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is a burst of solar wind, magnetic field or light isotope plasma above the solar corona or being released in space. The frequency of CME depends on solar maxima or minima. 1 CME every 5 days in a minima and 3 CME a day in solar maxima.
Composition:
Coronal Mass Ejection comprises of plasma containing protons and electrons or some times heavy elements like Helium, Oxygen and Iron.
Causes:
The solar flare or CME is caused by magnetic reconnection. When the magnetic fields that are oppositely directed come close to each other, it causes the release of energy stored in the fields. On sun the magnetic re connections occur due to solar arcades, which are closely occurring loops of magnetic lines of forces. The release of energy causes the solar flare which may eject unconnected magnetic helical fields and material outward as CME.
Impact On Earth:
The solar flares cause impact on magnetosphere, disruption in transmission and it also affects human beings.
CME reaches earth as ICME ( Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection) causing geomagnetic storm which disrupts the magnetosphere of the earth by compressing it to the day side and extending the magnetic tail to the night side. Again when the magnetosphere reconnects to the night side, it causes release of the power at tera-watt scale which goes to the Earth's upper sphere.
CME process causes strong auroras around the magnetic poles of the earth. Aurora is a natural light display in the sky caused by the collision of the charged particles directed by the Earth's magnetic field.They are seen in the sky at night but are often invisible.
CME causes disruption in radio transmission, damage satellites and electric transmission lines and may also cause long lasting power break down. Humans at high altitude, such as air planes may be exposed to strong and intense radiations, which may cause skin irritation and even skin cancer.
Solar Flare Of June 07:
As stated by the scientists the solar flare seen on June 07 was a mushroom of cooled plasma that ejected largets amount of of material in space ever seen. The material lofted up and fell back on sun's roughly half a surface. This caused CME into space.
Astrophysicist Phillip Chamberlin of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) who recorded the event said,
" This totally caught us by surprise There wasn't going much with the spot, but as it came from behind the sun, all of a sudden there was a huge ejection of particles. We'v never seen a CME this enormous."
Chamberlin stated further that it would take time to calculate the energy and the mass of electrons and protons taht had been ejected by that blare in the space, but he observed its volume to be hundreds of time bigger than the Earth.In past year space Observatories recorded about 70 such flares which were 10 times weaker than the extreme flares.
Refrences: www. Wikipedia.com
www.nationalgeographic.com
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