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last mo.

Study Finds Solar Flares Superheat Ions 6.5 Times More Than Electrons

Researchers tie the effect to magnetic reconnection, proposing it could explain decades of unusually broad flare spectral lines.

"This Appears To Be A Universal Law": 50-Year-Old Mystery About Our Sun's Storms May Have Been Solved
(Image Credit: NASA)
An artist's concept of the Sun emitting solar flares.
Image

Overview

  • Ion temperatures in flares could exceed 60 million degrees, according to an analysis by a University of St Andrews team published September 3 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
  • Recalculations with modern observations indicate ion–electron temperature differences can persist for tens of minutes in key flare regions.
  • Evidence supporting a roughly 6.5-to-1 ion-to-electron heating ratio comes from near-Earth space measurements, the solar wind and computer simulations.
  • The findings challenge the long-held assumption of equal ion and electron temperatures and imply lower turbulence amplitudes and adjusted energy budgets in flare models.
  • The authors outline tests using high-throughput spectroscopy and new loop-evolution models, highlighting NASA’s MUSE and the EUVST mission as priority platforms.