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The solar telescope-toting spacecraft Hironde of Japan has made a significant discovery in how the sun's chronosphere actually works. The red layer was once thought of as a relatively peaceful part of the sun, but that belief has been debunked.
The chronosphere actually hosts a multitude of violent solar flares every day. What starts as a huge magnetic vortex floats around, twisting, and suddenly explodes to shoot a high-intensity solar flare. NASA's solar physicist says that when they first saw the spectacle staff members almost fell out of their seats. "I managed to stay in my seat, but just barely" he recalls.
Solar flares are huge jets of hot gas that shoot up from the sun's photosphere and fall back again. Scientists believe that they must be triggered by magnetic instabilities in the star, but even after years of observation, experts found no explanation as to how exactly they are formed.
Hironde, astronomers hope, could be the catalyst for a huge discovery. The Solar Optical telescope it carries is the cutting edge of space observation technology, prompting many to call the spacecraft "the Hubble of the Sun." The spacecraft was launched in September of 2006 on a mission to gain more understanding on sunspots and solar flares. The name Hironde means "sunrise" in Japanese.
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