Solar flares: Much hotter when focused

GREENBELT, Md., April 2 (UPI) -- A U.S. space agency-funded researcher says he's discovered solar flares become much hotter when they remain "focused."

"A flare typically divides its energy between directly heating the solar atmosphere and accelerating particles," said Ryan Milligan of the Oak Ridge Association of Universities, who is stationed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

He said the flare he studied "seemed to focus on one task, devoting all its energy to heating, allowing it to become millions of degrees hotter than its multi-tasking cousins."

Solar flares are caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy, with the largest able to release as much energy as 1 billion 1-megaton nuclear bombs. However, Milligan said the flare he observed was a less powerful "micro" flare.

NASA researchers want to understand flares because they generate radiation that can be hazardous to astronauts.

The finding was presented Wednesday at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the annual national meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society.