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Image captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory  Credit: NASA/SDO Active regions on the sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern’s face on Oct. 8, 2014. The image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which watches the sun at all times from its orbit in space. The active regions in this image appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy.  They are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. This image blends together two sets of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths at 171 and 193 Ångströms, typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance. Credit: NASA/SDO Next Post Dawn Finds Possible Ancient Ocean Remnants at Ceres  

Image: Anatomy of the Sun. Credit: NASA/Jenny Mottar The standard model of solar flares explains many observational features of flares, assuming that they are driven by magnetic reconnection. F lares release approximately 10 30 –10 33 erg into the plasma but it is not clear, however, how that energy is partitioned between in situ heating of the corona, particle acceleration, and wave generation, nor to what extent the observable features of a flare depend on the balance between different types of coronal energy transport.

For orbital period generally we refer to the sidereal period, that is the temporal cycle that it takes an object to make a full orbit, relative to the stars. This is the orbital period in an inertial (non-rotating) frame of reference (365,25 days for the earth).