VARANASI: A huge wave energy in highly magnetized Sun’s plasma maintains the million-degree temperature in corona, which is the outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, a team of scientists associated with the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) have discovered.
The study led by solar and heliospheric physicist Dr Abhishek Kumar Srivastava have been published in the prestigious Nature Astronomy Journal on May 25, 2023.
The team, through world’s largest solar telescope- the 1.6m Goode Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory, have also achieved the first ever high-resolution view of sunspot umbra, and high energy wave dynamics in its plasma fibrils.
According to Srivastava, the team which included Prof Ding Yuan, used the Goode Solar Telescope, and detected numerous dark features in a big sunspot, which appear as the coldest structure of the sun. These dark features are plasma fibrils aligned with a strong magnetic field at kilo-Gauss at the sunspot.
The fibrils oscillate transversely, which means this is a kink MHD wave and they are able to drag the kilo-Gauss magnetic field lines to move laterally.
It implies that the fibril kink oscillations could potentially provide a very strong energy flux. Science team has developed a mathematical model of fast kink waves in sunspots and estimated that the energy flux is 1,000 to 10,000 times stronger than energy losses in active region plasma. This is sufficient to maintain the atmosphere of the Sun at a million-degree Kelvin temperature.
Srivastava, who is the part of this investigation, played a significant role in framing the scientific works.
He said that this new scientific discovery will change the view of strongly magnetized plasma regions at the sun as it was never seen before, and will play a significant role in solving the most outstanding coronal heating problem.
It will also be an outstanding scientific result for the next generation solar telescopes,.
The study led by solar and heliospheric physicist Dr Abhishek Kumar Srivastava have been published in the prestigious Nature Astronomy Journal on May 25, 2023.
The team, through world’s largest solar telescope- the 1.6m Goode Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory, have also achieved the first ever high-resolution view of sunspot umbra, and high energy wave dynamics in its plasma fibrils.
According to Srivastava, the team which included Prof Ding Yuan, used the Goode Solar Telescope, and detected numerous dark features in a big sunspot, which appear as the coldest structure of the sun. These dark features are plasma fibrils aligned with a strong magnetic field at kilo-Gauss at the sunspot.
The fibrils oscillate transversely, which means this is a kink MHD wave and they are able to drag the kilo-Gauss magnetic field lines to move laterally.
It implies that the fibril kink oscillations could potentially provide a very strong energy flux. Science team has developed a mathematical model of fast kink waves in sunspots and estimated that the energy flux is 1,000 to 10,000 times stronger than energy losses in active region plasma. This is sufficient to maintain the atmosphere of the Sun at a million-degree Kelvin temperature.
Srivastava, who is the part of this investigation, played a significant role in framing the scientific works.
He said that this new scientific discovery will change the view of strongly magnetized plasma regions at the sun as it was never seen before, and will play a significant role in solving the most outstanding coronal heating problem.
It will also be an outstanding scientific result for the next generation solar telescopes,.