What distinguishes a Coronal Mass Ejection from a solar flare?
Answer
A solar flare is radiation arriving in minutes, while a Coronal Mass Ejection is magnetized plasma taking days
While both phenomena are associated with solar activity, they are physically different. A solar flare is a burst of electromagnetic energy or light that travels at the speed of light, reaching our planet in about eight minutes. A Coronal Mass Ejection, conversely, is a massive physical cloud of magnetized plasma ejected from the Sun's surface. Because this plasma has mass, it travels much slower than light, typically taking one to three days to traverse the distance to our environment.
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