Solar Activities and Their Biological Effects

Why are studies of Suns activity important ?

The Climate Connection
The Sun - source of light and heat for life on Earth. The quantity and quality of light from the Sun varies on time scales from milli-seconds to billions of years

- how these changes influence climate on Earth.

 Space Weather
Solar wind - a flow of gases from the Sun that streams past the Earth at speeds of more than 500 km per second (a million miles per hour). Disturbances in the solar wind shake the Earth's magnetic field and pump energy into the radiation belts. Potential hazards
ultraviolet light and x-rays heat up Earth's upper atmosphere - can change the orbits of satellites and shorten mission lifetimes. excess radiation can physically damage satellites and pose a threat to astronauts. shaking Earth's magnetic field can cause current surges in power lines that destroy equipment and knock out power over large areas.

The Sun as a Star

serves an important role in understanding the rest of the astronomical universe.

The Sun as a Physical Laboratory

Nuclear physics reproducing the process of nuclear fusion involve extremely hot plasmas in strong magnetic fields. Much of solar astronomy involves observing and understanding plasmas under similar conditions. There continues to be much interaction between solar astronomers and scientific researchers in this and many other areas.

Big Questions About the Sun

The Coronal Heating Process
The Sun's outer atmosphere (the Corona) is hotter than 1,000,000C (1,800,000F) while the visible surface has a temperature of only about 6000C (10,000F).

The Nature of Solar Flares

Areas on the Sun near sunspots blasting billions of tons of material into space as coronal mass ejections (CME).

The Origin of the Sunspot Cycle

11 years cycle - the number of sunspots seen on the Sun increases from nearly zero to over 100 and then decreases to near zero again as the next cycle starts.

The Missing Neutrinos

The Sun should produce more than twice as many neutrinos than are observed.

Solar Flares
Reasons to study them
Influence on climate Potential hazards to space missions

NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center , through NASA Official Gordon D. Holman of the Heliophysics Science Division, defines a solar flare as, a sudden, rapid, and intense variation in brightness. A solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released. As the magnetic energy is being released, particles, including electrons, protons, and heavy nuclei, are heated and accelerated in the solar atmosphere.

What happens during the Suns 11-year cycle?

The Sun goes through its 11-year cycle, wherein the suns magnetic energy increases, causing a solar flare. Holman adds that the energy released during a flare is ten million times greater than energy released from a volcanic explosion. On the other hand, a solar flare is less than one-tenth of the total energy emitted by the Sun every second.

 It is not known exactly what triggers such eruptions, but they are associated with strong magnetic fields, and emanate from sunspots, which are cooler regions of the Sun that correspond to bottled-up magnetic energy. It must be a combination of the magnetic field strength and the magnetic configuration that will allow field lines to be opened and hence the release of gas

Coronal Mass Ejections

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are eruptions into interplanetary space of as much as a few billion tons of plasma and embedded magnetic fields from the Sun's corona. CMEs can occur at any time during the solar cycle, but their occurrence rate increases with increasing solar activity and peaks around solar maximum. CMEs are propelled outward at speeds ranging from <50 to ~2000 kilometers per second. Fast CMEs --those traveling faster than the ambient solar wind-are responsible for triggering large, nonrecurrent geomagnetic storms when they encounter the Earth's magnetosphere.

Filaments
Filaments are elongated coronal features composed of relatively dense material at chromospheric temperatures. They may erupt, and this often leads to a CME and to an associated flare-like structure of enormous scale

The Biological Effects

Solar flares through their extreme magnetic effects affect the central nervous system, brain activity and equilibrium (balance), our thought patterns, human behaviours, mental-emotionalphysical response. Therefore solar flares can cause humans and all living beings to be nervous, anxious, worrisome, jittery, dizzy, shaky for those who are super sensitive, irritable, lethargic, exhausted, short memory lost, heart palpitation for those with weak heart, regular pressure on the head and headaches.

 On a cellular level, solar flares and photon waves have a powerful effect on our bodies and can heat our core up rather fast, causing hot flashes. Other emotions hidden and stored in our cells from past experiences and traumas are stored as cellular memories and can find themselves erupting to the surface during strong magnetic field interactions. This is why we may find ourselves releasing these emotions of sadness and grief without knowing why.