New Imaging Technique Makes the Sun Look Like a Swirling Pink Liquid
As detailed in a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists have leveraged new coronal adaptive optics tech to bypass the blurriness caused by the turbulence of the Earth's atmosphere, a time-old obstacle that's frustrated astronomers' attempts to see features on our home star at a resolution better than 620 miles. Now, they've gotten it down to just under 40 miles — a light year sized leap.
The result is some of the clearest images to date of the fine structures that make up the Sun's formidable corona, the outermost layer of its atmosphere known for its unbelievable temperatures and violent, unpredictable outbursts.
The authors are optimistic that their blur-bypassing techniques will be a game-changer.
"These are by far the most detailed observations of this kind, showing features not previously observed, and it's not quite clear what they are," coauthor Vasyl Yurchyshyn, a research professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Center for Terrestrial Research (CSTR), said in a statement about the work.
"It is super exciting to build an instrument that shows us the Sun like never before," echoed lead author Dirk Schmidt, an adaptive optics scientist at the US National Solar Observatory.
https://twitter.com/NatSolarObs/status/1927477835398091130
Stretching for millions of miles into space, the corona is the staging ground for the Sun's violent outbursts, which range from solar storms, to solar flares, to coronal mass ejections. One reason scientists are interested in these phenomena is because they continue to batter our own planet's atmosphere, playing a significant role in the Earth's climate and wreaking havoc on our electronics. Then, at a reach totally beyond our very limited human purview, is the corona's mighty solar wind, which sweeps across the entire solar system, shielding it from cosmic rays.
But astronomers are still trying to understand how these solar phenomena occur. One abiding mystery is why the corona can reach temperatures in the millions of degrees Fahrenheit, when the Sun's surface it sits thousands of miles above is no more than a relatively cool 10,000 degrees. The conundrum even has a name: the coronal heating problem.
The level of detailed captured in the latest images, taken with an adaptive optics system installed on the Goode Solar Telescope at the CSTR, could be transformative in probing these mysteries.
https://twitter.com/coreyspowell/status/1927795449290764452
One type of feature the unprecedented resolution revealed were solar prominences, which are large, flashy structures that protrude from the sun's surface, found in twisty shapes like arches or loops. A spectacular video shows a solar prominence swirling like a tortured water spout as it's whipped around by the sun's magnetic field.
Most awe-inspiring of all are the examples of what's known as coronal rain. Appearing like waterfalls suspended in midair, the phenomenon is caused as plasma cools and condenses into huge globs before crashing down to the sun's surface. These were imaged at a scale smaller than 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles. In solar terms, that's pinpoint accuracy.
"With coronal adaptive optics now in operation, this marks the beginning of a new era in solar physics, promising many more discoveries in the years and decades to come," said coauthor Philip R. Goode at the CSTR in a statement.
More on our solar system: Scientists Detect Mysterious Object in Deep Solar System
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