{"id":30058,"date":"2023-04-25T21:58:06","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T21:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/04\/25\/tiny-jets-on-the-sun-power-the-colossal-solar-wind\/"},"modified":"2023-04-25T21:58:07","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T21:58:07","slug":"tiny-jets-on-the-sun-power-the-colossal-solar-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/04\/25\/tiny-jets-on-the-sun-power-the-colossal-solar-wind\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source:https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/tiny-jets-on-the-sun-power-the-colossal-solar-wind-20230424\/#comments<\/a><\/br>
\nTiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind<\/br>
\n2023-04-25 21:58:06<\/br><\/p>\n

\n

Torrents of charged particles continuously lift off the sun\u2019s atmosphere and radiate outward at millions of kilometers per hour, yielding a solar wind so immense that its limit defines the outer edge of our solar system.<\/p>\n

Despite the vast reach of this wind, its formation has long been a puzzle. Now a new analysis argues that the solar wind is powered by a collective set of intermittent, small-scale jetlike eruptions in the sun\u2019s corona, or outer layer. \u201cThe idea is similar to how individual clapping sounds in an auditorium become a steady roar as an audience applauds,\u201d said Craig DeForest<\/a>, a solar physicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and a co-author of the study.<\/p>\n

While scientists already knew that the corona was home to small jetlets that typically last for several minutes, they had previously discovered only a small number of them, mainly at the base of plumes emerging from cooler, less dense regions of the corona known as coronal holes.<\/p>\n

The new study reveals that they\u2019re ubiquitous. \u201cOnce you know how to find them, you see that they are everywhere in basically every structure in the corona all the time,\u201d said co-author Dan Seaton<\/a>, a solar physicist who is also at the Southwest Research Institute.<\/p>\n

The team found that the jetlets, each between 1,000 and 3,000 kilometers wide, are present even during the solar minimum, the least active phase of the sun\u2019s 11-year cycle \u2014 a result that\u2019s consistent with the solar wind\u2019s pervasive nature. \u201cYou can randomly pick any day and the jetlets are there, just like the solar wind,\u201d said Nour Raouafi<\/a>, a solar physicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and lead author of the study.<\/p>\n

In the paper laying out the new findings, published last month in the Astrophysical Journal<\/em><\/a>, the team provides evidence that the jetlets are sparked by a process called magnetic reconnection, which heats and accelerates a plasma of charged particles. The researchers suggest that the jetlets then produce waves that heat the corona and enable the plasma to escape the sun\u2019s gravity and coalesce to form the solar wind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe numbers come out looking promising and show it is really quite possible that jetlets could supply the mass lost by the sun to the solar wind,\u201d said Charles Kankelborg<\/a>, a solar physicist at Montana State University who was not involved with the study.<\/p>\n

The Engine<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The idea that small-scale, intermittent events could collectively drive the solar wind stems from the work of Eugene Parker, a pioneering solar physicist who died last year. In 1988, he suggested that a \u201cswarm of nanoflares\u201d driven by tiny bursts of magnetic reconnection could heat the corona enough to power the wind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/br><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n

Uncategorized<\/br>
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\nSource:https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/tiny-jets-on-the-sun-power-the-colossal-solar-wind-20230424\/#comments<\/a><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source:https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/tiny-jets-on-the-sun-power-the-colossal-solar-wind-20230424\/#comments Tiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind 2023-04-25 21:58:06 Torrents of charged particles continuously lift off the sun\u2019s atmosphere and radiate outward at millions of kilometers per hour, yielding a solar wind so immense that its limit defines the outer edge of our solar system. Despite the vast reach of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/04\/25\/tiny-jets-on-the-sun-power-the-colossal-solar-wind\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source:https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/tiny-jets-on-the-sun-power-the-colossal-solar-wind-20230424\/#comments Tiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind 2023-04-25 21:58:06 Torrents of charged particles continuously lift off the sun\u2019s atmosphere and radiate outward at millions of kilometers per hour, yielding a solar wind so immense that its limit defines the outer edge of our solar system. 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