Small brightenings hold clue to big solar flares: study

Bengaluru: In a new study, scientists have found small, short-lived brightenings in the Sun’s atmosphere that appear in the hours before a major solar flare erupts and cluster around the very spot where the flare later occurs.

“The results suggest that repeated small-scale energy release may progressively destabilise the magnetic field in an active region, eventually leading to a large solar flare,” ISRO, which collaborated on the study, said.

The study was carried out by researchers from the Manipal Centre for Natural Sciences and Manipal Academy of Higher Education, along with scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Department of Space, and other academicians.