New Discovery: Sun and Its Magnetic Field

Scientists have just learn something very interesting about our sun!

There are slow-moving waves of plasma on the sun, and they could actually help us understand what’s going on with the star’s magnetic field.

NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) has ten years of data, and it has helped a lot in the finding of the plasma. It is spreading through the entire solar surface at about 5km per hour. Researchers also used computer models in order to recreate the waves and find out even more valuable information about their origin.

They learned that the plasma moves due to the fact that the areas of the sun rotate with different velocities – this is known as the differential rotation of the sun.

Back in 2013, researchers learn about some large solar plasma waves, but they weren’t as big as the ones from 2021. Researchers want to learn more about what’s underneath the surface of the sun and about the behavior of the star.

The solar dynamo is the process in which the motion of plasma that’s inside the sun actually makes its magnetic field exist. The magnetic field makes the solar cycle, the activity of the star, that’s known from solar eruptions and sunspots.

There are numerous types of waves, of numerous sizes and numerous frequencies.

Yuto Bekki, the co-author of the study, stated: “The models allow us to look inside the Sun’s interior and determine the full three-dimensional structure of the oscillations.” His colleague, Damien Fournier, also said that “All of these new oscillations we observe on the sun are strongly affected by the sun’s differential rotation. co-author Robert Cameron added: “The oscillations are also sensitive to the properties of the sun’s interior: in particular to the strength of the turbulent motions and the related viscosity of the solar medium, as well as to the strength of the convective driving.”