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The Sun is a strange place, where every ninety minutes, from its surface, plasma bubbles larger than the size of the Earth are blown and hot rains fall in a loop.
Two independent teams of researchers have discovered these peculiarities by analyzing the data collected by Helios solar sensors, now retired, as a result of a collaboration between NASA and the German Aerospace Center and the US. NASA Solar Dynamics observatory. The probes were launched in the mid-1970s and died about a decade later, but left behind a mass of data.
Temperatures on the solar corona can skyrocket to millions of degrees Celsius. The plasma region constitutes the outer layers of the Sun's atmosphere. It is there that a team of researchers led by Simone Di Matteo, PhD student in Space Physics at the University of L'Aquila, Italy, discovered puddles of charged particles get blobs.
They are filled with high-energy electrons, protons and alpha particles, which can reach 50 to 500 times the size of the Earth and are carried into space as a solar wind. These bubbles are blown to create drops of drops, ejected every 90 minutes or so, like a solar lava lamp.
Despite their large sizes, plasma bubbles have been surprisingly difficult to find. When the solar wind pushes these bubbles, they float over great distances in the solar system and the temperature and density of the particles disappear.
Fortunately, the evidence about them was captured in the data collected by the Helios probes. Scientists have already observed these spots from Earth, but have never studied their formation as close to the Sun.
The results, published in JGR Space Physics, show that these patches are warmer and denser than the normal solar wind level. NASA hopes to study these bubbles with its Parker solar probe, launched last year.
"This is one of those studies that has raised more questions than we have answered, but it's perfect for Parker Solar Probe," said NASA solar scientist Nicholeen Viall.
In another paper that also examines the wreath, a separate team of researchers from NASA and the Catholic University of America analyzed how rain fell on the sun, but not the rain we are used to. Coronal rain has some similarities to rain on Earth, but instead of liquid water, it is composed of hot plasma trails.
The plasma is heated by solar energy and pushed to the surface of the sun. Particles are guided by magnetic field lines and loop-shaped patterns, where they break off from the Sun's surface and collapse into circles, creating what is called coronal rain.
A visualization of the coronal rain. Image from a GIF created by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Scientific Visualization Studio / Tom Bridgman, Lead Animator.
Data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which traces the movement of plasma, may explain why the crown is hotter than the surface of the sun. Plasma is heated from a few thousand degrees Celsius to nearly a million degrees Celsius as it moves through the loop. While cooling, the particles condense and the gravity brings them back to the sun.
"If a loop has coronal rain on it, it means the lower 10 percent, or less, are the ones where coronal warming occurs," said Emily Mason, first author of the paper published in The Astrophysical Journal and a student. graduated at Catholic University of America.
From time to time, these loops are open and do not make the complete turn to fall back on the surface of the sun. Mason does not consider them as coronal rain, because the plasma escapes under the effect of the solar wind. Researchers are now trying to see if these types of loops can explain the slow solar wind, a type of emission that is less energetic than typical solar wind currents. ®
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