what triggers the flares and explosions. if we can get an idea of what triggers them, we can get more of a predictive mechanism for determining the existence of what chris was calling coronal mass ejections. so, david, for all we know about the sun, there s still a lot we don t know about what causes they flares? absolutely. we can now predict some types of flare events, oh, 14 hours in advance, which isn t bad. look at that. here it comes. i love that. we call it bailey s beads, because there was a guy named bailey who first described them, but i element it as the diamond ring effect. you would see that visually for a few nomts in the sky, but you immediately have to put your glasses back on, because you re looking at the full atmosphere