Expert: Courtney Seligman - 8/2/2009

Question
Hello Courtney

Please forgive me if my questions sound arogant, I have little scientific knowledge, but I would like to ask the following:

I would like to know if solar flares can also take place deep inside a star? And if we can be sure that supernova arn't a final solar flares?

Thanks
David

Answer
A solar flare represents a phenomenon in which energy trapped in the Sun's magnetic field is suddenly transferred to the gases enveloped by that field, increasing their energy and temperature by thousands of times. Such transfers are not possible deep inside a star -- at least not in the same sense -- because the interior of the star is a completely ionized gas, and magnetic fields are pushed out of such regions, into areas close to the surface of the star, where the gases are only partially ionized.

That doesn't mean that there can't be processes which suddenly increase the energy and temperature of a gas deep inside a star. They just wouldn't involve the same kind mechanism, so they wouldn't be "flares".

As an example, one kind of supernova involves the collapse of an iron core, which triggers a collapse onto the core by the regions outside it, which increases the temperature in those regions a thousand-fold, which increases the energy production in those regions by a google or so (add a hundred or more zeroes to the rate of energy production), which blows off the outside of the star. So in the sense that the temperature suddenly increases a thousand-fold, the process is "similar"; but the mechanism is totally different, as the energy increase is caused by the conversion of gravitational potential energy to heat. So I'd say that no, solar flares cannot occur deep inside a star, and supernovae are in no way related to them.