By Stuart Layt
August 7, 2021
Scientists have developed a new model for how the material that makes up our sun moves around, starting them on a path to predicting damaging solar storms which can wreak havoc on Earth.
The sun is made up of extremely hot gases held together by its gravity, which is so great it squeezes hydrogen atoms together in a constant state of nuclear fusion, producing its light and heat.
A massive coronal ejection from the sun in 2012 could have wiped out all electronics on Earth.
CREDIT:NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTRE
The gases that make up the sun are what scientists call plasma, generating an intense electromagnetic field and behaving more like a liquid.
The material moves constantly, and previous modelling of its behaviour suggested the currents and eddies in this white-hot ocean would behave similarly to those found in Earth’s oceans.
However, new mathematical modelling developed by scientists from the University of Sydney and in the US has predicted that the material moves differently from what was expected.
Geoffrey Vasil from the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sydney said he and his colleagues were confident their calculations reflected what was really going on in the sun’s roiling body.
The gases that make up the sun are what scientists call plasma, generating an intense electromagnetic field and behaving more like a liquid.
The material moves constantly, and previous modelling of its behaviour suggested the currents and eddies in this white-hot ocean would behave similarly to those found in Earth’s oceans.
However, new mathematical modelling developed by scientists from the University of Sydney and in the US has predicted that the material moves differently from what was expected.
Geoffrey Vasil from the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sydney said he and his colleagues were confident their calculations reflected what was really going on in the sun’s roiling body.
Dr Geoffrey Vasil from the University of Sydney and colleagues in the US have developed a new model for how the material in the sun behaves.
CREDIT:UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
“The theory was that blobs of fluid were moving from deep within the sun up to the surface, and what we took into account was the influence of the rotation of the sun,” Dr Vasil said.
“We found that the rotation should have an influence on the movement of this fluid, and we have done the calculations and they all check out.”
Dr Vasil and collaborators Professor Keith Julien of the University of Colorado and Dr Nicholas Featherstone at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, concluded that instead of the “blobs” of material, the rotation would create giant cigar-shaped swirling columns.
Dr Vasil said this would help explain fluctuations in the sun’s electromagnetic field, which cause “space weather” - streams of high-energy particles ejected from the sun that can cause all sorts of problems on Earth.
The Earth’s magnetic field shields humans from most of the inclement solar weather, but sudden massive fluctuations in the sun, such as sunspots and solar flares, can batter down that shield.
The Carrington Event in 1859, which affected the fledgling telegraph system, is now understood to have been a massive solar storm that, if it occurred today, would disrupt all electronic devices on the side of the planet in its path.
A solar storm similar in size was launched from the sun in 2012, but narrowly missed the Earth.
Scientists are still largely unable to predict when these events will occur.
Dr Vasil said he hoped he and his colleagues’ work would bring them closer to being able to get ahead of solar weather, comparing it to improvements in weather prediction on Earth over the past century.
“We didn’t used to be very good at predicting weather, but actually we’ve gotten very good over the last few decades at predicting weather with a reasonable level of accuracy,” he said.
“But that’s here on Earth, the weather is all around us; the sun is very far away, relatively speaking, so we just don’t have all the data we need to make predictions.”
He said future solar probe missions would hopefully be able to physically observe and measure the spinning columns of plasma predicted by the team’s modelling.
The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
“The theory was that blobs of fluid were moving from deep within the sun up to the surface, and what we took into account was the influence of the rotation of the sun,” Dr Vasil said.
“We found that the rotation should have an influence on the movement of this fluid, and we have done the calculations and they all check out.”
Dr Vasil and collaborators Professor Keith Julien of the University of Colorado and Dr Nicholas Featherstone at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, concluded that instead of the “blobs” of material, the rotation would create giant cigar-shaped swirling columns.
Dr Vasil said this would help explain fluctuations in the sun’s electromagnetic field, which cause “space weather” - streams of high-energy particles ejected from the sun that can cause all sorts of problems on Earth.
The Earth’s magnetic field shields humans from most of the inclement solar weather, but sudden massive fluctuations in the sun, such as sunspots and solar flares, can batter down that shield.
The Carrington Event in 1859, which affected the fledgling telegraph system, is now understood to have been a massive solar storm that, if it occurred today, would disrupt all electronic devices on the side of the planet in its path.
A solar storm similar in size was launched from the sun in 2012, but narrowly missed the Earth.
Scientists are still largely unable to predict when these events will occur.
Dr Vasil said he hoped he and his colleagues’ work would bring them closer to being able to get ahead of solar weather, comparing it to improvements in weather prediction on Earth over the past century.
“We didn’t used to be very good at predicting weather, but actually we’ve gotten very good over the last few decades at predicting weather with a reasonable level of accuracy,” he said.
“But that’s here on Earth, the weather is all around us; the sun is very far away, relatively speaking, so we just don’t have all the data we need to make predictions.”
He said future solar probe missions would hopefully be able to physically observe and measure the spinning columns of plasma predicted by the team’s modelling.
The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
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