The Daniel-Dinouye sunery in Hawaii is the largest sun relief in the world. There have been unique shots from the surface of our star several times. Now astronomers have succeeded with another milestone with this sun -relieving: For the first time, they were able to make solar plasma loops and threads visible from only 21 to 54 kilometers in diameter. These threading structures emerged after a strong radiation outbreak on the sun and formed a curtain of parallel plasma compounds between two larger grinding towering from the sun surface. The threading structures are the smallest and could represent the “basic building blocks” of the plasma storms created in solar outbreaks and magnetic reconnectures, as the astronomers report. The possibility of observing these elementary grinding directly for the first time is a significant progress for sun research.
The surface of the sun is a dynamic place: Hot plasma constantly swells upwards from deeper layers, on the edges of these plasma broken glass, cooler plasma drops into the depth. In addition, tremendous plasma loops along the solar magnetic field lines form in active zones of the sun and on radiation outbreaks. They protrude far beyond the sun surface. When the energy of magnetic reconnexions discharges in the solar flares, these “flare loops” gradually cool down and can then rain entire waterfalls made of plasma drops and threads onto the sun surface, as shots of sun probes and earthly solarfishes have shown. The exact geometry of these coronary grinding and their substructures could provide valuable information on the physical processes behind it. It is therefore important to observe and map them as precisely as possible.
Plasma loops in the highest resolution so far
So far, however, the dissolution of the spatial probes and telescopes has not been sufficient to map even the finest threads of the solar plasma. “According to theoretical assumptions, the elementary loops have a diameter of between ten and 200 kilometers,” explain Cole Tamburri from the University of Colorado in Boulder and his colleagues. “However, these values are below the dissolution limit of most telescopes.” The upstream recordings so far came from the Good Sonnentelescope on the Big Bear Solar Observatory in California, which recently showed coronary plasma stairs down to around 65 kilometers thick. Tamburri and his team have now captured even finer flare loops for the first time using the inouye sunelescope, because the maximum resolution of this four-meter telescope reaches up to 24 kilometers on the sun. The recordings reach the astronomers during and after an X1.3 class radiation, which occurred on the sun on August 8, 2024. “It is the first time that the Inouye-Telekop captures an X-Class flare,” says Tamburri. “These radiation outbreaks are among the strongest that our star creates and we were lucky to catch this flare under perfect observation conditions.”
The telescope recorded the phenomena with its visible Broadband Imager (VBI) in the area of wavelength in the flare and then occurring 656 nanometers-the H-Alpha wavelength generated by emissions. The recordings showed two bright, neighboring plasma flows in the active area of the flares, christened N and S according to their geographical location. “Thin coronary loops run between these currents, both of which connect together,” report Tamburri and his team. “Each loop runs almost parallel to its neighbors, so that a whole arcade of coronary grinding rises from the plasma stream n.” These plasma loops appear as dark threads in front of the solar plasma hole. Further analyzes reveal that these threaded structures were around 48 kilometers thick, the finest of them even had a diameter of less than 24 kilometers. “These are the thinnest coronary loops that have ever been observed in the sun,” says Tamburri. “In front of Inouye we could only imagine how everything looks on this benchmark, now we see it directly for the first time.”
Basic element of the Flare architecture
The astronomers suspect that the threading structures that have now been shown for the first time could be the basic building blocks of the flare architecture. “If this is the case, we no longer only see the bundle of plasma loops, but for the first time the individual loops themselves,” explains Tamburri. “This is as if we no longer only see the forest, but suddenly also individual trees.” According to the researchers
The symmetry of the observed plasma threads and also their development in the aftermath of the radiation outbreak. In this way, the astronomers were able to observe how the individual plasma threads first brightened at their tip during their cooling, then gradually also in deeper areas.
According to the astronomers, these recordings are an important breakthrough for sun research. “We are finally seeing the spatial scales that we have only speculated about for years,” explains Tamburri. “This gives us the opportunity not only to examine their size, but also their shape, their development and even the size areas in which the magnetic reconnexion-the engine behind Flares-takes place. This is a milestone moment for sun research.” This applies primarily because the current recordings will only be the beginning of further observations on this scale. “We will then be able to use these observations to examine the role of solar fine structures for heating the flares and further narrow down the current simulations,” the astronomers write. Together, this will contribute to a more detailed image of flare development in the solar chromosphere and corona.
Source: Cole Tamburri (University of Colorado, Boulder) et al., The Astrophysical Journal Letters, DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ADF95E
