NASA SDO Uncovers Mysterious Depths of Sun's Interior with Bright Points in Corona

First Posted: Apr 18, 2014 07:29 AM EDT
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Astronomers have uncovered a new way to probe the sun's hidden depths. The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) can track bright points in the solar atmosphere and magnetic signatures on our star's surface to reveal a bit more about what lies beneath the sun's surface.

"There are all sorts of things lurking below the surface," said Scott McIntosh, one of the researchers, in a news release. "And we've found a marker for this deep rooted activity. This is kind of a gateway to the interior, and we don't need months of data to get there."

So how exactly did the researchers map the interior of the sun? One of the most common ways to get a better glimpse inside the star is through a technique called helioseismology. Scientists track the time it takes for waves to travel from one side of the sun to the other. From helioseismology solar scientists have some sense about what's happening inside of the sun.

Researchers believe the interior of the sun is made up of granules and super-granules of moving solar material. This material is constantly overturning like boiling water in a pot.

Yet this latest method uses other techniques. The researchers probed the solar interior by using the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager on NASA's SDO. This can map the dynamic magnetic fields that thread through and around the sun. In the end, the scientists found that the magnetic parcels they mapped corresponded to the size of granules and super-granules. In addition, they spotted areas much larger than those previously noted-about the diameter of Jupiter. They also noticed that ubiquitous spots of extreme ultraviolet and X-ray light, known as brightpoints, preferred to hover around the vertices of these large areas.

"Imagine a bunch of helium balloons with weights on them," said Robert Leamon, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The weights get carried along by the motions at the bottom We can track the motion of the helium balloons floating up high and that tells us what's happening down below."

The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone

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