Click here for an image of a solar flare. During solar maximum, solar flares occur at an average of one flare per week. The flares can last for hours for large events to only tens of seconds for impulsive events. A solar flare heats the solar gases to tens of millions of degrees Kelvin and accelerate protons and electrons streaming toward Earth. The abrupt release of energy contains ultraviolet light, x-radiation, and sometimes gamma radiation.
Solar flares appear as a sudden brightening of a small area on the sun.
The particles from a solar flare are able to react with the magnetosphere and some of those particle are able to enter the magnetosphere and reach the ionosphere to produce auroras and affect our communication systems. The solar wind is constantly streaming toward the Earth but its speed is always changing. Solar wind originates due to the expansion of the corona, the sun's outer atmosphere. The solar wind composition reflects the composition of the corona. High velocity solar wind originate from coronal holes found at the poles of the sun.