flare

Sudden intense brightening of a small part of the Sun's surface, often near a sunspot group. Flares develop in a few minutes and may last several hours, releasing intense X rays and streams of energetic particles. They appear to be connected with changes in the Sun's magnetic fields during the solar cycle. The ejected particles take a day or two to reach the vicinity of Earth, where they can disrupt radio communications and cause auroras, and may pose a radiation hazard to astronauts.

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Star that varies in brightness repeatedly but sporadically, sometimes by more than one magnitude, within a few minutes. The cause is thought to be the eruption of flares like those observed on the Sun but much larger (see solar flare). Proxima Centauri, in Alpha Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, is a flare star.

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In culture and the arts

• Flare (magazine), a Canadian fashion and style magazine
• Flare (breakdance move), a move employed in breakdancing
• Mylene Flare Jenius (ミレーヌF ジーナス, Mirēnu F. Jīnasu), a fictional character in the Macross universe
• A Black magic spell featured throughout the Final Fantasy series
• Flare (science fiction novel) by Roger Zelazny and Thomas Timoux Thomas
• Bell-bottoms are a style of trousers sometimes referred to as 'flares'
• The Flares, a doo wop group
• Fully Flared, a skateboarding film by Lakai

In science and medicine

• Flare (pyrotechnic), a luminous device often used for signaling
• Flare (countermeasure), an aerial countermeasure against heat-seeking missiles
• In aviation, the rotation of the aircraft's nose up, used at the final part of landing to arrest the descent rate before touch down is referred to as a 'flare'
• A Wing-In-Ground effect vehicle, also known as a flarecraft
• The re-occurrence of symptoms after a period of remission in fibromyalgia, Crohn's disease and Lupus erythematosus.
• Solar flare, an eruption of plasma from the surface of the sun
• Satellite flare, a phenomenon caused by the reflective surfaces on satellites
• Xara Flare a file format in computing
• Flare, a help authoring tool published by MadCap Software
• In plumbing, the expansion flare on the end of a pipe; see flare fitting
• Flare Technology, a corporation
• Gas flare or flare stack, a type of chimney
• Lens flare, a phenomenon which occurs when observing bright sources of light
• Flare, a parachute landing manoeuvre

See also

• Flair