Brighter news: Some clever clogs has taken the most detailed photo of the sun ever, either that or a close up of a Crunchie. A special telescope in Hawaii did the job. If it is the sun (it is) each cell is about the size of Texas according to reports. I didn't write the next bit, obviously...
“The bright features [in the image] … are the foothills of magnetic fields that extend all the way up into the corona and beyond,” said Rimmele. “With the additional instruments that will come online in the next six months, we will be able to measure the magnetic fields from the surface all the way up to 1.5 solar radii.”
The observations could help resolve longstanding mysteries of the sun, including the counter intuitive feature that the corona – the sun’s atmosphere – is heated to millions of degrees when its surface is only 6,000C. Understanding the physics of solar flares and coronal mass ejections could also significantly improve the ability to predict space weather, which can render GPS systems unreliable, take down power grids and knock out communication channels.
No comments:
Post a Comment