NEW YORK: The first high-resolution images of the flaring magnetic structures have been taken by scientists at NJIT’s Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). These magnetic structures are called as solar flux ropes at their starting point in the Sun’s chromosphere. Their research has been published in Nature Communications. The study throws light on the huge eruptions on the Sun’s surface accountable for space weather.
The NJIT images have been captured from observations of the recently made 1.6m New Solar Telescope (NST) at BBSO. Flux ropes are bundles of magnetic fields, which rotate and twist together around a common axis, as a result of motions in the photosphere, which is a high-density layer of the Sun’s atmosphere below the solar corona and chromosphere.
According to Haimin Wang, distinguished professor of physics at NJIT and the study’s lead author, “These twisting magnetic loops have been much studied in the Sun’s corona, or outer layer, but these are the first high-resolution images of their origination in the chromosphere below it. For the first time, we can see their twisting motion in great detail”.
