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The NASA Solar Dynamics observatory captured an image of the massive torch that broke away from the sun on September 10, 2017. (Source: NASA / Goddard / SDO)
Studies of a Solar eruption revealed something unexpected about the sun: its magnetic field is even stronger than expected by scientists.
Measuring the magnetic field within loops of material emerging from the sun has been a delicate task because of the interferences of the Earth's atmosphere. But a team led by David Kuridze, a solar physicist at Aberystwyth University in the UK, was lucky when he saw an ultra-powerful rocket that the sun went down on September 10, 2017.
The researchers spotted the flare using the Swedish solar telescope 1 meter from the Roque de los Muchachos observatory in La Palma, Canary Islands. The solar telescope is a particularly powerful solar telescope, but its openness (viewing area) allows researchers to examine only 1% of the sun at a time. Fortunately, the team was looking at the right place when a solar flare erupted.
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This chance allowed them to measure the intensity of the magnetic field of the torch in the crown or the atmosphere of the sun.
The sun is well known for its magnetic activity, including periodic eruptions that rise from the surface when the magnetic lines twist and "break". Eruptions are associated with coronal mass ejections, which send charged particle streams into space. If these particles are directed towards the Earth, they can disturb the satellites or cause auroral displays colored.
This new discovery could help scientists better understand what is happening in the crown, the superheated portion of the upper solar atmosphere visible only by humans during a total solar eclipse. The corona is being studied by a NASA spacecraft called Parker Solar Probe, which is closer to the sun than any previous spacecraft.
"Everything that happens in the outside atmosphere of the sun is dominated by the magnetic field, but we have very few measurements of its strength and spatial characteristics," Kuridze said in a statement. "These are critical parameters, the most important for the physics of the solar corona.It's a bit like trying to understand the climate of the Earth without being able to measure its temperature at different geographical locations."
The search is described in an article that was accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal and was posted to the arXiv.org pre-print server in February.
Original article on Space.com.
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