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2017 May 23

Microflare
Click for movie.


High Cadence Mircoflare

In March the sun produced no classifiable active regions for approximately two weeks. Desperation for solar activity required Hinode/XRT to point at a faint, unclassified active region for a coordinated observation with ALMA, a radio telescope. The early prognosis indicated a low success probability for the coordinated observation, which targeted mircroflares. Still, the observers held onto a slim hope, which the sun rewarded.

During the observation, the small bright region produced a microflare, the observation's intended target. The observed microflare (above) is one of a kind because the observation has the highest time cadence of any previous XRT microflare. Previous lower cadence microflare observations show a bright point (visible in the present movie's lower right); however, taking nearly 10 times the number of images per minute shows the X-ray emitting gas's dynamic evolution initiated by the microflare/bright point. The gas's evolution indicates that magnetic reconnection occurs during a microflare, which may be due to a small emerging magnetic dipole.


Keywords: Microflares, Bright Point
Filters: Al_poly


(Prepared by Jakub Prchlik)

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