How big are solar flares, really?

Mmmmmmm, delicious context. When the news says "massive," this is what they mean.

Thanks to Scott Stevenson for making this and sending it my way!

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: context • News • Science • solar flare • Space • sun

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MDwebguy

You often crack me up, Maggie. Not only is your enthusiasm for science infectious, your explanations are (usually) comprehensible and (mostly) interesting to the average Joe. Best of all, you never seem the least bit self conscious about waving your geek flag proudly. I like that in a woman.
Finnagain

Ok, but how many bread boxes would it take to contain this solar flare. Bread boxes are my only point of reference.
http://twitter.com/WorldScott Scott A. Stevenson

Thank you Maggie Koerth-Baker for sharing my NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) inspired video with Boing Boing readers et al. Cheers!
awjt

Nice flare-front property!
http://twitter.com/Listener43 Listener43

To make this easier, two dozen Earths would fill approximately 10^19 Olympic Swimming Pools.
superkuh

The eruption which is seen here is not a solar flare but the two are often associated and large solar flares more often than not have eruptions. There can be eruptions without flares and flares without eruptions.

The solar flare itself is only a couple earth diameters wide in terms of xray bright points (presumably) from magnetic reconnection. The eruption is the very large bit of plasma shown. Conflating the two can cause confusion when talking about their effects on space weather since they are significantly different.

When you talk about a big flare, it is in reference to the irradiance in Earth orbit in the 1 to 8 nanometer xray band.

When you talk about a big eruption it is in terms of mass, length, and the other metrics talked about above.
http://www.facebook.com/john.olmstead John Olmstead

I need this in relation to football fields.
Nylund

I liked the video, but that narrator needs to practice his enunciation.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kenahoo Ken Williams

Nice video, but I’m going to have to report it to the Proper Definition Of Enormity police.
http://naamaak.blogspot.com/ naam

Did the narrator really say “… for comparisun dun tsk tsk dun dun tsk tsk”?