'Missing link' explosion on the sun could unravel longstanding solar mysteries - Space.com

The event showed characteristics of three different types of solar eruptions that usually happen separately but, uniquely, occurred together this time, according to a statement from NASA.  Because it included many different types of events at once, scientists investigating the explosion in a new study think this strange phenomenon could reveal what causes all types of solar eruptions.

"This event is a missing link, where we can see all of these aspects of different types of eruptions in one neat little package," Emily Mason, lead author on the new study and solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in the same statement.

Unlike these two, partial eruptions originate from the sun's surface but don't make it all the way out into space; the material that erupts just falls back onto the sun. !

During the March 2016 eruption, scientists observed hot solar material erupt from a "magnetically active" region of the sun's surface, according to the statement.

The event seems to have characteristics of all three different types of solar eruptions, so scientists think that they could all be caused by the same phenomenon and, therefore, by finding the mechanism behind this event, they could explain the origins of all solar eruptions. .

Following the observations of the eruption, scientists continue to study the eruption and others like it, modeling them to investigate the mechanism behind them and the trigger that started them.

So, by better understanding the mechanism behind solar eruptions, scientists hope that they can better predict them and prevent damage from CMEs.