7/22/2023 0 Comments Discovery park parker![]() ![]() “Where these supergranulation cells meet and go downward, they drag the magnetic field in their path into this downward kind of funnel. Bale, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement. ![]() “The photosphere is covered by convection cells, like in a boiling pot of water, and the larger scale convection flow is called supergranulation,” said lead study author Stuart D. The spacecraft’s data revealed that the coronal holes act like showerheads, where jets appear on the sun’s surface in the form of bright spots, marking where the magnetic field passes in and out of the photosphere.Īs magnetic fields pass each other, moving in opposite directions within these funnels on the solar surface, they break and reconnect, which sends charged particles flying out of the sun. “That’s going to affect our ability to understand how the sun releases energy and drives geomagnetic storms, which are a threat to our communication networks.” “Winds carry lots of information from the sun to Earth, so understanding the mechanism behind the sun’s wind is important for practical reasons on Earth,” said study coauthor James Drake, distinguished professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, in a statement. Understanding the source of the solar wind can help scientists better predict space weather and solar storms that can affect Earth.Īlthough they can cause beautiful auroras, the solar storms can also impact satellites and Earth’s electrical grids. This flip causes the coronal holes to appear across the sun’s surface and release bursts of solar wind directly toward Earth. ![]() But during the maximum of the solar cycle, an 11-year period over which the sun’s activity gradually increases, the sun’s magnetic field flips. The fast solar wind doesn’t usually impact Earth. The slower solar wind, located in the same plane of the solar system as Earth, flows at a calmer 249 miles per second (400 kilometers per second). The faster solar wind streams from holes in the corona at the sun’s poles at a peak speed of 497 miles per second (800 kilometers per second). The far-reaching phenomenon also includes part of the solar magnetic field and extends well beyond the corona, interacting with planets and the interstellar medium. Solar wind is a continuous outflow of plasma, which contains charged particles like protons and electrons. Credit: JHU Applied Physics Laboratory/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Untangling solar wind An illustration depicts Parker Solar Probe as it approaches the sun. The spacecraft was specially designed to eventually fly within 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) above the solar surface, and in late 2021, it became the first mission to “touch” the sun.Ī study detailing the solar findings was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. ![]()
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