Editorial: New Insights into High-Energy Processes on the Sun and Their Geospace Consequences

Xiangliang Kong ^1* Jing Liu ¹ Gang Li ²

• ¹ Shandong University, Weihai, Weihai, China
• ² Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macao, Macao, SAR China

The Sun releases an enormous amount of energy during explosive solar activities, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections (Webb and Howard, 2012; Aschwanden et al., 2017;Benz, 2017). The solar corona can be heated up to tens of millions of degrees and a large number of charged particles can be accelerated to nearly the speed of light (Desai and Giacalone, 2016;Reames, 2017). Heated plasmas and high-energy particles increase solar radiations across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to gamma-ray wavelengths, which can have a profound effect on the Earth's upper atmosphere immediately after about eight minutes. These create additional ionization and heating in the Earth's upper atmosphere, leading to radio blackout, GNSS signal interferences and tracking loss, increased drag on spacecraft, as well as affecting the global electric circuit (GEC), and many other phenomena (Bothmer and Daglis, 2007;Buzulukova and Tsurutani, 2022;Tacza et al., 2022). Recent studies have demonstrated that the solar flare effects can extend to the Earth's magnetosphere via electrodynamic coupling (Liu et al., 2021(Liu et al., , 2024)).When the high-energy particles propagate through the interplanetary medium and arrive at the vicinity of the Earth, known as solar energetic particle (SEP) events, they can pose hazardous radiation threats to astronauts and spacecraft electronics in space (Vainio et al., 2009;Shea and Smart, 2012). This Research Topic aims to collect scientific contributions on high-energy processes on the Sun and their geospace consequences. Eight research articles and one review are contained in this electronic book, focusing on multi-wavelength observations of solar flares, acceleration and transport of energetic particles, and impacts of solar eruptions on the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system.Qiu that brightening-dimming sequences in the lower solar atmosphere can be used to identify 23 the properties of magnetic reconnection or plasma expansion of overlying magnetic structures in the corona.This novel method was examined by the observations of two eruptive flares.