About how many solar flares are emitted from the Sun in a day?
Dear Kay, That’s a very interesting question. As a matter of fact, flares aren’t “emitted” from the Sun at all! They are large, hot explosions that happen on the surface. Sometimes when a flare goes off (and sometimes even when there isn’t a flare), a thing called a “coronal mass ejection” or C.M.E., happens. A C.M.E. is a bunch of material that gets emitted from the Sun and shoots across the solar system. There is about one C.M.E. per day during the solar minimum activity period. We’re just getting into a phase of maximum activity, when we expect several C.M.E.’s per day.
