Exeter: Scientists Crack 60-Year-Old Mystery of Sun's Magnetic Waves

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Exeter: Scientists Crack 60-Year-Old Mystery of Sun's Magnetic Waves

Post by bystander » Tue Dec 03, 2019 12:25 am

Scientists Crack 60-Year-Old Mystery of Sun's Magnetic Waves
University of Exeter | 2019 Dec 02

A ground-breaking new discovery of why the Sun’s magnetic waves strengthen and grow as they emerge from its surface could help to solve the mystery of how the corona of the Sun maintains its multi-million degree temperatures.

For more than 60 years observations of the Sun have shown that as the magnetic waves leave the interior of the Sun they grow in strength but until now there has been no solid observational evidence as to why this was the case.

The corona’s high temperatures have also always been a mystery. Usually the closer we are to a heat source, the warmer we feel.

However, this is the opposite of what seems to happen on the Sun – its outer layers are warmer than the heat source at its surface.

Scientists have accepted for a long time that magnetic waves channel energy from the Sun’s vast interior energy reservoir, which is powered by nuclear fusion, up into the outer regions of its atmosphere.

Therefore, understanding how the wave motion is generated and spread throughout the Sun is of huge importance to researchers. ...

A Chromospheric Resonance Cavity in a Sunspot Mapped with Seismology ~ David B. Jess et al
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