In the context of physical phenomena, a flare is a transient, intense increase in electromagnetic radiation and often particle emission from an astrophysical object, typically associated with rapid energy release in a magnetized plasma. Solar and stellar flares arise from magnetic reconnection in the corona, converting stored magnetic energy into heating, particle acceleration, and broadband radiation from radio to gamma rays on timescales of seconds to hours. Flares are characterized by impulsive and gradual phases, nonthermal electron and ion populations, and can drive associated phenomena such as coronal mass ejections, shock waves, and disturbances in surrounding magnetized environments.
New research led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has confirmed decades-old theoretical models of magnetic reconnection, the process that releases stored magnetic energy to drive solar flares, coronal mass ejections ...
Astronomy
Aug 18, 2025
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Lightning might not strike twice, but black holes apparently do. An international group of researchers led by Tel Aviv University astronomers observed a flare caused when a star falls onto a black hole and is destroyed.
Astronomy
Jul 21, 2025
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Some exoplanets in their stars' habitable zones may be distinctly uninhabitable due to solar flaring. Red dwarfs are known for powerful flaring, and since they're dim and their habitable zones are close to the star, these ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 10, 2025
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40
Astronomers using the European Space Agency's Cheops mission have caught an exoplanet that seems to be triggering flares of radiation from the star it orbits. These tremendous explosions are blasting away the planet's wispy ...
Astronomy
Jul 2, 2025
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A SpaceX rocket being tested in Texas exploded Wednesday night, sending a dramatic fireball high into the sky.
Space Exploration
Jun 19, 2025
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Astronomers have discovered a previously unknown birthplace of some of the universe's rarest elements: a giant flare unleashed by a supermagnetized star. The astronomers calculated that such flares could be responsible for ...
Astronomy
Apr 29, 2025
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A massive black hole at the heart of a galaxy in the Virgo constellation is waking up, shooting out intense X-ray flares at regular intervals that have puzzled scientists, a study said Friday.
Astronomy
Apr 13, 2025
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192
At a distance of just over four light years, Proxima Centauri is our nearest stellar neighbor and is known to be a very active M dwarf star. Its flare activity has been well-known to astronomers using visible wavelengths ...
Astronomy
Mar 27, 2025
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198
When the sun hurled enormous amounts of radiation into space in an explosive eruption on February 22, 2024, the Indian space probe Aditya-L1, launched a few months earlier, was watching closely—and thus captured the first ...
Astronomy
Feb 28, 2025
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60
The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way appears to be having a party—and it is weird, wild and wonderful.
Astronomy
Feb 18, 2025
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