Anti-matter created during solar flares?

[JTsyo]

On a show on the History channel about 10 ways to destroy the Earth, they mentioned that the Sun creates about 2lbs of anti-matter during strong solar flares. Then it is immediately annihilated by regular matter. They said the amount of energy released per pound to be about 40 Mtons.
What I'm wondering is if this is an observed phenomenon or just conjuncture. I imagine even large explosions are just noise when compared to the background sun activity, so I don't see how they would know there was anti-matter present.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

It's part observed (We can measure the energy produced during a solar flare reasonably well), part theory based on known particle interactions, along with a bit of conjecture about the conditions present on the sun during a solar flare. Here's some more information:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/antimatter-03a.html

 

[sao123]

so is it that the solar flare creates the antimatter?

or is the matter anti-matter annihilation which causes the solar flare ejection?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: sao123
so is it that the solar flare creates the antimatter?

or is the matter anti-matter annihilation which causes the solar flare ejection?

Solar flares, according to my limited understanding, are caused by magnetic field perturbations on the surface of the sun. I would imagine that those same magnetic fields sort of function a bit like particle accelerators here on Earth, but on a much larger scale, by guiding and accelerating particles along magnetic field lines. Those particles collide with others and create a few anti-matter particles in the process. Solar flares are so huge though that a relatively large amount of anti-matter is created in the process.

/late edit for spelling

 

[The Boston Dangler]

i saw that show - very disappointing. it falls far short of this classic web site: http://qntm.org/?destroy

 

[Leros]

We've produce anti-matter in very small quantities, so I would guess that we've observed this phenomena in a lab environment.