By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept

Science, Space & Technology

Space Science Digital
Contact
Search
  • Home
  • Environment

    Analysis of Magellan data shows apparent volcanic activity on Venus

    March 21, 2023

    Alpha Centauri planets? TOLIMAN will search

    April 6, 2023

    What are white dwarf stars? How do they form?

    April 25, 2023

    Largest cosmic explosion ever seen is still ongoing

    May 13, 2023
  • Space Flight

    All of Neptune’s clouds have vanished – it may be because of the sun

    August 17, 2023

    International crew arrive at space station aboard SpaceX Dragon Endurance

    August 28, 2023

    Atlas 5 rocket returns to pad for spy satellite agency launch from Cape Canaveral

    September 8, 2023

    Radar-imaging satellite lost as Rocket Lab Electron rocket suffers launch failure

    September 19, 2023
  • Cosmology

    Astronomers Map out the Radio Waves Coming From Large Satellite Constellations

    July 7, 2023

    We’ve Got to Go Back to Enceladus. Here’s a Mission That Could Get the Science

    July 14, 2023

    Carbon-Based Molecules Seen Just a Billion Years After the Big Bang

    July 20, 2023

    Secret Sky: An inverse black-drop effect

    July 28, 2023
  • Latest
  • About Us
Reading: Shedding light on the sun
Share
Aa
Space Science DigitalSpace Science Digital
  • Environment
  • Space Flight
  • Cosmology
  • Technology
Search
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Environment
    • Technology
    • Cosmology
    • Space Flight
  • More Foxiz
    • Blog Index
    • Forums
    • Complaint
    • Sitemap
Follow US
© 2023 Space Science Digital. All Rights Reserved.
Space Science Digital > Blog > News > Shedding light on the sun
News

Shedding light on the sun

By Jayden Hanson March 30, 2023 8 Min Read
Share


Contents
Powerful surprisesMagnetic charmA star is bornVivid discourse
The Sun from a distance of 75 million kilometers. Credit: © ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI team; Data processing: E. Kraaikamp (ROB)

As questions abound about the Earth’s closest star, scientists are seeking answers critical to forecasting solar flares that threaten satellites and other electronics.

For most of humankind’s history, it has been hard to explain the sun as anything other than a powerful deity.

For instance, the ancient Greek god Helios—the personification of the sun—raced his chariot across the sky to create night and day, whereas the ancient Egyptians worshiped their falcon-headed sun god, Ra, as creator of the universe.

Powerful surprises

Since then, science has revealed that, for example, the sun on average turns on its axis once every 28 days. But at its equator, the hot plasma ball rotates once every 25 days, while it takes around 35 days at the poles, creating a swirling soup of piping hot plasma.

Nonetheless, the power of the sun can still offer surprises, with blasts fierce enough to fry communication satellites or electronics on Earth. Scientists warn of more powerful solar flares as a peak of activity approaches in late 2024 and early 2025.

“There is this turbulent motion inside our star, called convection, that is a bit like how water wrinkles just before it boils,” said Professor Sacha Brun, director of research at CEA Paris-Saclay, part of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission.

An infamous magnetic storm that hit Earth in September 1859, known as the Carrington Event, triggered spectacular auroras far from polar regions and sizzled telegraph systems around the world.

There have been more since. In 1989, a geomagnetic storm caused a blackout in Quebec, Canada, according to Brun.

Greater knowledge about the sun is needed to predict and understand such events.

That swirling ball of hydrogen and helium is also unimaginably hot—with core temperatures of 15 million °C. And it’s ginormous—more than 1 million Earths fit inside the sun.

Its peaceful presence on a summer’s day belies the intense nuclear reactions at its core that generate vast amounts of energy. The sun is a churning ball of plasma, with gases so hot that electrons are booted out of atoms, generating intense magnetic explosions from its surface that spew billions of tons of matter into space.

Magnetic charm

As it spins, the sun’s mechanical energy turns into magnetic energy—a bit like the dynamo on a bicycle light, where pedal motion is converted into magnetic energy.

On the sun, twisty ribbons of magnetism rise and break out as sunspots, dark patches at the surface where the magnetic field is 3,000 times more intense than in the surrounding areas.

sunspots can trigger those solar flares that damage electrical equipment. But this activity isn’t constant.

“The magnetism of the sun is variable over an 11-year cycle,” said Brun, an astrophysicist.

Over that cycle, coronal mass ejections rise in frequency, from one every three days to an average of three per day at its peak.

“As we go further into the cycle, more outbursts will emerge from the sun,” Brun said. “People don’t realize that the Earth bathes in the turbulent magnetic atmosphere of our star.”

So there’s an obvious need to anticipate when such solar storms approach. For example, a solar flare in February 2022 knocked out 40 SpaceX commercial satellites by destroying their electronics.

Those energetic particles take just 15 minutes to reach Earth from the sun. The threat posed by magnetic clouds usually takes a few days, offering more time to brace for any onslaught.

Brun co-leads an EU-funded project called WHOLE SUN to understand the interior and exterior layers of the only star in the Earth’s solar system.

Running for seven years through April 2026, the initiative focuses on the inner turbulence of the sun and the complex physics that turns the inner turmoil into magnetism in the outer layers.

This requires the most powerful supercomputers in the world. Yet forecasting solar flares means that scientists gain greater understanding of the insides of the sun.

A star is born

What about the distant past of the sun? It has been around for 4.6 billion years—100 million years before Earth. Where and how it was formed would seem to be an impenetrable mystery.

Not so, according to Dr. Maria Lugaro at the Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Lugaro, an Italian astrophysicist, is researching this very question in the EU-funded RADIOSTAR project. It began in 2017 and runs through August this year.

“We believe that the sun wasn’t born alone, but was born in a star-forming region where there’s lots of stars,” Lugaro said.

She is looking into this past by examining chemical fossils in meteorites today.

Radioactive atoms are unstable. They release energy and decay into so-called daughter atoms, over a certain length of time, which are measurable. The daughters are therefore chemical fossils, offering information about long-gone radioactive atoms.

Lugaro’s research suggests that the sun originated in a stellar nursery that contained lots of siblings, including exploding stars—supernovas. But digging into the sun’s history first requires finding meteorites, bits of rock formed before Earth.

These meteorites can contain traces of the radioactive atoms such as aluminum-26 and hafnium-182. It is known that these lived only a certain length of time. Together, traces of such atoms can be used as a radioactive clock to compute the age of the stars that made them, relative to the age of the sun.

Vivid discourse

Some radioactive atoms are made in only certain types of stars. Their presence in meteorites helps to recreate a picture of the sun’s birthplace, albeit one that’s up for debate.

It may be that the sun was birthed amid dust and gas clouds in a tempestuous region alongside supergiant stars and exploding stars.

Within perhaps 20 million years, the different stars begin to make their own way out of the nursery. But things are far from being scientifically settled.

“Every year there’s debate: is the sun normal or is it a weird star?” said Lugaro. “It’s quite fun.”

Provided by
Horizon: The EU Research & Innovation Magazine


Citation:
Shedding light on the sun (2023, March 30)
retrieved 2 April 2023
from https://phys.org/news/2023-03-sun.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.



TAGGED: light, Shedding, sun

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
[mc4wp_form]
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Jayden Hanson March 30, 2023
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Email Copy Link Print
Leave a comment Leave a comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

[mc4wp_form]

HOT NEWS

All of Neptune’s clouds have vanished – it may be because of the sun

Space Flight
August 17, 2023

Is that this black gap jet making stars explode?

Again to Article Listing Greater than twice the anticipated quantity of novae have been discovered…

October 27, 2024

NASA Says Spacecraft Crash Test Successfully Changes Asteroid’s Orbit

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A spacecraft that plowed into a small, harmless asteroid millions…

October 11, 2022

World-Saving Spacecraft Passes Test

NASA says its DART spacecraft successfully shifted the path of an asteroid. For us earthlings,…

October 11, 2022

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

Proposed CASTOR Area Telescope Waits on Authorities

The proposed Canadian led Cosmological Superior Survey Telescope for Optical and uv Analysis, generally referred to by its acronym CASTOR,…

News
October 27, 2024

Dwelling (Alone) on Mars: Actor Daniel Stern on main NASA in ‘For All Mankind’

If there's certainly a multiverse the place in each attainable end result occurs, then in a type of universes Marv…

News
December 23, 2023

China Spacewalk: Photo voltaic Panel Restore Check

Picture credit score: China Nationwide Area Administration (CNSA)/China Central Tv (CCTV) The primary extravehicular exercise of the Shenzhou-17 mission was…

News
December 23, 2023

Watch large loop of plasma dance above the solar in gorgeous video

Miguel Claro is an expert photographer, writer and science communicator primarily based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular pictures of…

News
December 23, 2023
We use our own and third-party cookies to improve our services, personalise your advertising and remember your preferences.
  • Jobs Board
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Exclusives
  • Learn How
  • Support
  • Solutions
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Editorial Policy
  • Marketing Solutions
  • Industry Intelligence

Follow US: 

Space Science Digital

Welcome to spacescience.digital, A source for the latest news and developments in the exciting field of space science. Our blog covers a wide range of topics, from the latest space missions and discoveries to updates on technology and scientific breakthroughs. We are passionate about sharing the wonders of the universe with our readers and providing them with engaging and informative content. Join us on this fascinating journey as we explore the mysteries of space and the frontiers of human knowledge.

© 2024 Space Science Digital. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?