Flurry of solar flare-ups sets off cosmic plasma explosion Footage of solar flares taken by the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory. The Sun had a flurry of flare activity at the end of August, releasing over half a dozen solar flares in a day, some of which were accompanied by coronal mass ejections. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spotted the activity in images captured at extreme …
"CMEs are usually caused by large flares and can release up to a hundred billion kilos of super-heated electrons, protons and heavy nuclei at speeds of up to two million miles per hour."
In non-babytalk units: up to a hundred million tonnes ... up to 900 km/s.
The author needs to make up his mind: either admit we readers are adults and understand moderately scientific articles, or stop trying to report astronomy news to the mass of drooling morons he decided we are.
I must agree that I would appreciate a bit of consistency. If one starts with metric units to quantify something, I have always found it irritating to see the next measurement in imperial units, or vice-versa.
Let's at least stick to one system of measurement, please ?
Oh, and one other thing : I very much doubt that the Sun can only spew forth a paltry hundred million tons at a time. The wiki page on CMEs states that average mass is 1.6×10^12kg (i.e. 1.6 billion tons), and that that measurement is a lower limit because of the detection method.
CMEs are not caused by flares, though they may, for all we know, be linked to a common disruption of the magnetic field in a solar active region. A small fraction of CMEs have no apparent, associated, flare. A large fraction of flares are associated with no CME whatsoever.
Flares are high power events (lots of energy released in a short span of time), and are purely radiative events, though they may be associated with eruptive phenomena such as sprays, surges, erupting prominences (filaments), and CMEs. CMEs generally display higher total energy, in the form of kinetic energy, than flares. The largest CMEs are generally associated with intense flares, but not necessarily vice versa.
Correlation does not imply causality.
OK, @SysKoll, how'd I do on not insulting your intelligence?
We live in a false paradigm reality bounded by faux science, fake history, filtered news and financed with a fiat currency. Luckily the new Gutenberg press, the INTERNET is causing a New Renaissance and humanity will be freed of this ancient feudal mantle. The Sun is not a giant Hydrogen ball, visit the afore mentioned Thunderbolts research on the correct models of our Universe.
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