Sunquakes would rate about 11.3 on the Richter scale. These huge quakes release about 40,000 times more energy than the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The solar wind is emitted where the Sun's magnetic field loops out into space instead of looping back into the Sun. These magnetic anomalies in the Sun's corona are called coronal holes. In X-ray photographs of the Sun, coronal holes are black areas.
Coronal holes can last for months or years.
Since the particles are emitted from the Sun as the Sun rotates, the solar wind blows in a pinwheel pattern through the solar system. Prominences can loop hundreds of thousands of miles into space. Prominences are held above the Sun's surface by strong magnetic fields and can last for many months. At some time in their existence, most prominences will erupt, spewing enormous amounts of solar material into space. As these bursts of solar wind rise above the Sun's corona, they move along the Sun's magnetic field lines and increase in temperature up to tens of millions of degrees.