Scientists find how magnetic waves help the sun maintain its 15 million degree temperature

Researchers at Queen's University Belfast uncover some of the mysteries in how the sun able to heat its atmosphere. The research article was published in “a study in Nature Physics”

In that article they reveal that magnetic waves crashing through the sun are one of the main reasons for the heating process and thus propelling the sun wind.

The waves play a important role in maintaining the sun’s super high temperatures, this was predicted some 75 years ago now only it was proved.

"At Queen's, we have now led a team to detect and pinpoint the heat produced by Alfvén waves in a sunspot," Jess added. "This theory was predicted some 75 years ago but we now have the proof for the very first time. Our research opens up a new window to understanding how this phenomenon could potentially work in other areas such as energy reactors and medical devices."

To find the mystery, the research took advanced high-resolution observations from the Dunn Solar Telescope in New Mexico, US, alongside complementary observations from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, to analyse the strongest magnetic fields that appear in sunspots.

"By breaking the sun's light up into its constituent colours, our international team of researchers were able to examine the behaviour of certain elements from the periodic table within the sun's atmosphere, including calcium and iron," added another researcher on the paper, Dr. Samuel Grant from Queen's University.

"Once these elements had been extracted, intense flashes of light were detected in the image sequences."

He said that these intense flashes had all the hallmarks of the Alfvén waves converting their energy into shock waves, in a similar way to a supersonic aircraft creating a boom as it exceeds the speed of sound.

"The shock waves then ripple through the surrounding plasma, producing extreme heat. Using supercomputers, we were able to analyse the data and show for the first time in history that the Alfvén waves were capable of increasing plasma temperatures violently above their calm background," he explained.