The quiet Sun (the 99%, or more, of the solar surface not covered by sunspots or active regions) is receiving increased attention in recent years; its role on the global magnetism and its complexity are being increasingly recognised. A picture of a rather stochastic quiet Sun magnetism is emerging . From these recent works, the quiet Sun magnetism is presented as a myriad of magnetic field vectors having an isotropical distribution with a cascade of scales down to the mean free path of the photon (1 marcsec, or 10km on the solar surface). But this chaotic representation also shows clear signs of intermittency: at a low frequency rate (0.022 events h-1 arcsec-2) the magnetic field appear in the quiet Sun forming well-organised loop structures at granular scales. Right figure shows an example of such small-scale loop (1 arcsec, or 1000 km on the solar surface). We cas see as it is formed by a myriad of nested field lines forming a spartial (and temporal) coherent structure. More interesting, these loops rise to higher layers (see left figure) and their energy input into the chromosphere can be important for the heating of this layer.
Advertised on
References
(2010)The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 714, Issue 2, pp. L94-97
It may interest you
-
New study reveals enhanced magnetic activity across the stellar atmosphere after the intermediate rotation-period gap Stars change as they age. Like our Sun, they rotate and generate magnetic fields, producing phenomena such as dark spots on their surfaces and influencing the activity of their atmospheres. As stars age, they generally rotate more slowly and their magnetic activity declines. However, observations have revealed an unexpected feature in this evolution: a shortage of stars with certain intermediate rotation periods. This intermediate rotation-period gap suggests that stellarAdvertised on -
In the standard Lambda cold dark matter (Lambda-CDM) cosmology, galaxies grow by gradually accreting material and through mergers with other galaxies. This scenario successfully explains many large-scale cosmic structures, yet it struggles to account for the existence of numerous massive spiral galaxies in the local Universe that lack a prominent central bulge, pure disc systems, in the local Universe. Understanding how these galaxies form and survive is also essential for placing our own Galaxy, the Milky Way, into context, as it also hosts a low-mass bulge. In this study, we analyse 22Advertised on -
The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), through the European UNDARK project and together with CERN, has brought together international experts in cosmology, astrophysics and theoretical physics to analyse some of the discrepancies that are challenging our current understanding of the Universe. The aim is to determine whether they arise from effects in the observations that are not yet fully understood, or whether they conceal unknown physical phenomena still waiting to be discovered. We know more about the Universe than at any other time in history, and we can measure some of itsAdvertised on