The Flare-CME Connection

S. Yashiro¹, N. Gopalswamy²

¹Interferometrics, Herndon, Virginia, USA
²NASA’s GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

A solar flare is a sudden flash of electromagnetic radiation in the solar atmosphere, and a coronal mass ejection (CME) is an eruption of the atmospheric plasma into interplanetary space. Both phenomena are thought to be different manifestations of the same process which releases magnetic free energy stored in the solar atmosphere. The Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) on boar the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission has observed more than 11,000 CMEs from 1996, which is a great opportunity to investigate the flare-CME relationship and compare it with the pre-SOHO view. A new finding is that many flares often lie at the center of the associated CME, contrary to previous conclusions. We also summarize the flare-CME research activities in the SOHO era.