Sharpest Pictures Of Sun’s Surface Reveal Previously Unseen Whirlpools, Pg II

Key Highlights:

• Scientists have captured the highest-resolution images of the sun's surface, revealing previously unseen small, violent plasma whirlpools.
• The discovery was made using the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) in Hawaii.
• These whirlpools are believed to be an efficient mechanism for transferring energy and magnetic flux within the sun's atmosphere.
• The findings could provide insights into the coronal heating problem and the energy release mechanisms behind solar flares.
• The research was published in Nature on August 5.

Whirlpools.jpg

Detailed Insights:

• The visible part of the sun, known as the photosphere, is a turbulent environment composed of superheated plasma.
• Previous observations of the sun's surface showed convection cells, or granules, which are large structures up to 2,000 km wide, but their edges appeared blurred.
• The DKIST, with its 4-meter primary mirror, enabled imaging at an unprecedented resolution of 19 km, resolving the previously blurred edges.
• The newly discovered whirlpools are small coils of plasma, ranging from 25-170 km in length, located at the boundaries of the granules.
• These vortices rotate rapidly at speeds of 1.6-2.8 km/s, constantly forming, merging, and dissipating within seconds.
• Magneto-hydrodynamics simulations confirmed the observations and indicated that these whirlpools exist 100-400 km below the photosphere.
• The whirlpools are thought to generate turbulence, distort magnetic fields, and facilitate the braiding of magnetic field lines, which can lead to the release of magnetic energy.

Scientific/Technical Concepts Involved:

• Photosphere: The visible surface layer of the sun, from which light is emitted.
• Convection Cells (Granules): Temporary, beehive-like structures on the sun's surface caused by rising hot plasma and sinking cooler plasma.
• Solar Flares: Sudden, intense bursts of radiation and energy from the sun's surface, often associated with magnetic field reconfigurations.
• Coronal Heating Problem: The long-standing scientific puzzle of why the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, is millions of degrees hotter than its surface.
• Magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD): The study of the motion of electrically conducting fluids, such as plasma, in the presence of magnetic fields.
• NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST): The world's largest solar telescope, located in Hawaii, designed for high-resolution observations of the sun.