Japan’s Hinode solar observing spacecraft has discovered that the sun is emitting as many as 240 small x-ray flares per day. Based on mass calculations these small flares are estimated to contribute as much as 10% to 25% of the solar wind. They appear at all latitudes and have roughly 1000 times less energy than an m class normal x-ray flare.

This discovery has announced Dec. 6, 2007. Perhaps there will be a paper written to discuss the implications of this discovery.

See this link for details.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...c_xrayjets.htm

See these links to see a movie image of the flares.

Three jets in low resolution

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2.../threejets.mov

Many jets in low resolution

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...HDV720_sm.mov;

These miniature solar x-ray flares had been missed before, as they are short term events. The Hinode solar observing spacecraft includes instrumentation that can record x-ray events.