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The wire-like structures contain hot, electrified gases that boil at a million degrees of heat, at the base of a solar flare. (Image: NASA / UCLan)
This is the closest image of the Sun, and it finally reveals that sunspots, which until now were thought to be dark and empty, are actually quite violent.
- News18.com
- Last update: April 13, 2020 5:33 PM IST
For the first time, scientists have been able to observe magnetic plasma strands on the violent solar surface. These threads, which are up to 500 kilometers wide, are part of what constitutes the devastating solar storms that also give us the beautiful northern lights. Close-up images have been made possible by the High Resolution Coronal Imaging Camera (Hi-C), a suborbital space telescope specifically tasked with taking ultra-high-definition pictures of the solar surface.
The image has revealed incredibly fine magnetic threads on the violently turbulent solar surface, which are filled with plasma flowing through them at a million degrees of heat. In essence, this is the first time that scientists on Earth have glimpsed a granular element of solar storms, which will eventually help humanity better understand the behavior and composition of the highly magnetized solar atmosphere, and find other elements it has. .
These massive strands of plasma also fill the void, literally, of what was previously believed to be empty, dark sunspots. Instead, the gaps are actually plasma wires, which are nearly 500 km wide and have hot, electrified gases flowing through them. However, although we have now managed to observe the threads, their physical mechanism, as well as how and why they are formed, remains completely unknown until now. Scientists leading the Hi-C solar observation project believe that this knowledge will help humanity understand exactly how and why solar flares form, and how this can affect life on Earth.
This, unsurprisingly, is just the proverbial tip for potential discoveries. Amy Winebarger, principal investigator of the Hi-C telescope at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, said in a statement: “Along with ongoing missions like Probe and SolO, this fleet of space instruments in the near future will reveal the dynamics of the Sun. outer shell in a whole new light. ” Led by Professor Robert Walsh, professor of solar physics at the University of Central Lancashire, Hi-C’s task is to continue capturing more ultra-high-definition photographs of the solar surface.
When it was launched in 2012, NASA-MSFC labs had claimed that Hi-C carries the best optical parts ever created for solar astrophysics, which explains how powerful the telescope is. Hi-C can select objects that are only 70 km wide on the solar surface, or just 0.01 percent the size of the Sun. The researchers now rely on more Hi-C data, along with missions like SunRISE (slated to launch in 2023), to learn about stellar behavior, in an attempt to better understand the chemical and physical properties of a star, and what effect this may have on humanity.
