The Sun's surface often has areas with strong magnetic fields. These areas, called active regions, can appear quickly. They can also fade away slowly or quickly, sometimes over days, weeks, or even months.
A new study looked at active regions that last a long time. These are patches where strong magnetic fields take at least a month to disappear.
Citizen Scientists Help Uncover Solar Secrets
This study used help from NASA's Solar Active Region Spotter project. Volunteers answered questions about pairs of images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
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Start Your News DetoxProject leaders Emily Mason and Kara Kniezewski analyzed the data from these volunteers. They found something surprising. Long-lasting active regions produce many more solar flares than shorter-lived ones.
These long-lived regions are also three to six times more likely to cause the most powerful solar flares. This suggests that these long-lasting active regions are very important for predicting space weather. They could also give us clues about the Sun's magnetic fields deep inside.
The Solar Active Region Spotter project is now finished. You can find out more about its results online.
Deep Dive & References
New study about these long-lived active regions - The Astrophysical Journal, 2024
