How far scientists are right will become clear in the next two years.
The main secret of the Sun is its temperature. More precisely, in the temperature difference. For some mysterious reason, the outer regions of the atmosphere of our luminary - the so-called corona - are much hotter than itself.
On the surface of the Sun - about 6 thousand degrees. Logically, the farther from it, the cooler it should be. The temperature should decrease with distance from the star. But, on the contrary, it is growing. Hundreds of times. The outer atmosphere of the Sun - the very corona - is heated up to a million degrees. And sometimes stronger. Why?
Heliophysicists at the University of Michigan (UM) seem to have found the answer. But it will be possible to make sure that they are really right only in two years - when the heat-resistant Parker Solar Probe flies through the abnormally heated parts of the solar corona. It was launched specifically in order to explore the outer - unknown - region of the atmosphere of our star. And watch the cyclopean processes taking place there.
The * Parker * probe is the most refractory of all probes.
According to Justin Kasper, a professor at UM and lead specialist of the Parker mission, the Sun has a "burning" secret for 500 years - since astronomers began to amaze the shining solar corona, which became well visible during solar eclipses. The essence of the secret was penetrated about 70 years ago, and 12 years ago it was slightly revealed. But they didn't figure it out completely.
Scientists understood that the root cannot be heated just like that - from the Sun itself. As if from a stove. The laws of thermodynamics get in the way. This means that the temperature rise far from the star does not occur as a result of heat exchange, but due to some other processes. For example, waveforms arising in a plasma atmosphere.
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Back in 1947, the Swedish scientist Hannes Alfven, a 1970 Nobel laureate in physics, predicted the existence of solar plasma waves that originate in the solar photosphere, propagate along magnetic lines of force, go into the corona and, thereby transferring energy, it - the crown is heated. The waves were named after their "discoverer" - Alfven waves. Or Alfvén. But the phenomenon itself was discovered only in 2007.
Alfven waves in the solar corona were seen through a telescope by Scott McIntosh and Steve Tomczyk of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They saw from the Earth, but doubted that they were able to heat the crown - by themselves and so much.
Justin Kasper and his colleagues believe that the main secret of the Sun is still associated with the waves of Alfven. According to scientists, they are quite enough for heating. Because these waves go not only from the Sun, but also in the opposite direction. As a result, a kind of a sphere of overheating appears around the star, which extends to the so-called Alfven point. Having passed it, the waves can no longer go back - against the solar wind, which has gained tremendous speed.
The solar corona appears to be heating up Alfven waves. But this still needs to be verified.
Calculations show that the radius of the overheating sphere can be 10-50 times greater than the solar one. Its outer edge sparkles with a solar crown. Heated charged particles fill the corona. Some ions are 10 times hotter than hydrogen in the corona, which in turn is hotter than that in the sun's core.
In 2021, during the next rapprochement with the luminary, the Parker probe will reach the overheating zone for the first time - it will experience the "impacts" of Alfven waves. The collected data will help to finally understand what is happening in the solar corona, in whose power both the Earth and its inhabitants are.
By the way, there is still an unsolved mystery in the solar wind. This hot stream of charged particles, rushing from our star at a speed of several million kilometers per hour, "washes" our entire system. Planets, comets, asteroids "feel" its bursts. And next to the Sun - at the surface - there is no wind. Why? It is possible that scientists will understand this too.
A LITTLE EARLIER
Closer and closer
November 8, 2018, when the Parker probe, which was about 23 million kilometers from the Sun, plunged slightly into the solar corona. Coronal screamers - jets of solar plasma - hit the lens of his WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe) camera. This photo was recently released by NASA.
Photo from the Parker probe: almost near the sun.
Experts explain: the Sun burst from its eastern edge with plasma jets. The bright circle sparkling in the picture just below the jets is Mercury. A dozen of some kind of black circles are not alien ships, not a swarm of planets like nibiru, but shooting defects.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY
