The sun isn’t quite as big as we thought, so may release solar flares differently to how we expect
NASA
Our sun is fractionally smaller than it seems, which could change our understanding of its internal structure and behaviour.
Historically, astronomers have estimated the sun’s size by measuring the part that emits light, called the photosphere. This is done during a solar eclipse.
A different estimate of the sun’s radius can be found by measuring sound waves travelling through it. In the 1990s, astronomers did this using sound waves near the …