Successful visualization of the "solar wind" that the sun releases with its own algorithm, to elucidate why Corona changes to solar wind

ByNASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

From the sun that exists in the center of the solar system, in addition to heat, light, radio waves and radiation, "Solar windThere is a large amount of substances called so called. How the solar wind was born from the atmospheric layer "Corona" on the sun surface, its mechanism and actual appearance remained a mystery for a long time, but as the NASA explorer tried to unravel its appearance is.

Images From Sun's Edge Reveal Solar Wind Origins | NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/images-from-sun-s-edge-reveal-origins-of-solar-wind

The solar wind is the "wind" blowing towards the surroundings of the solar system at an average speed of 450 km. Solar wind named "Solar Wind" in English, but in fact it is a particle (plasma) ionized positively and negatively by high temperature, its density is extremely thin "wind" of about 5 per square centimeter and It is getting. The solar wind has the role of preventing the cosmic rays coming from the outer space by wrapping the entire solar system, and the phenomenon of solar wind that the aurora shines in the polar region of the earth.

The solar wind released from the sun will spread over time to space, but eventually it will lose its pressure and slow down. And finally the solar wind flow is lost when the pressure with the gas drifting in the interstellar space is balanced. This range where the solar wind reaches is called "Solar Sphere" (Heliosphere), and it was confirmed in 2012 that the prospecting machine "Voyager 1" has left the solar area. This became big news that things made by human beings had escaped for the first time in the solar region.

"Voyager 1", finally escaping the solar area Artifacts first
http://www.astroarts.co.jp/news/2013/09/13voyager/index-j.shtml

In this way, although the solar wind spreading the particles to the extent that it is released from the sun and covers the planet of the solar system completely, there was a part which is regarded as a mystery in that mechanism. Solar wind is a thin, ultra-high temperature atmospheric layer on the surface of the sun "coronaAlthough I knew that the ingredients were released, why the corona with high density jumped out into outer space and changed to solar wind, where the boundary was, was not understood for a long time.


Scientists hypothesized that the cause was due to magnetic field lines surrounding the sun. Particles that constitute the corona, which have been plasmatized at high temperatures reaching one million degrees, are positively and negatively charged, respectively. This charge creates a corona by trapping particles in the field lines of the sun, but the corona, which is under high pressure due to the strong sun's gravity, sometimes causes a strong explosion. It is thought that the mechanism of solar wind generation is that particles are released toward outer space when the force generated during this explosion exceeds the force of the magnetic field lines of the sun.

The observation to prove the hypothesis was made by NASA's project to investigate the sun using two probes "STEREO(Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) ". Two probes used in STEREO are thrown on the same revolution orbit as the earth and sandwiching the sun at a 180 degree angle in orbit, observing the state of the corona mainly from all angles of the sun without observation It is possible to do.


The spacecraft is equipped with a camera that captures the state of the corona surrounding the sun and the way the solar wind is born from it. The camera captured the image of the left side of the following GIF animation, but as you can see at a glance there are countless stars and strong light from the sun, so that a very vaguely gasy object appears There is only one. So NASA has developed its own algorithm and succeeded in eliminating these noises. In this way, it is the image that the right solar wind is squirting.


The following footage made it possible to better understand the movement further. It seems that the speed of regeneration is increased, but you can see how the particles of gas are being injected as if sprayed.


In this way, it was observed that the particles forming the corona were solar winds by shaking off the force of the magnetic field lines of the sun. Nicholeen Viall, one of the research team and a solar scientist at the NASA · Goddard Space Flight Center, said, "We came to know the overall picture of the mechanism by which solar wind was created, We will understand our understanding of how it is formed, "he says about the significance of this achievement.