An international team of scientists has confirmed the existence of giant Rossby waves in the interior of the Sun, which are caused by the rotation of a star around its axis. Similar disturbances usually form in the atmosphere and oceans of the Earth, but researchers have already found the first evidence of waves in the solar corona. This is reported by Science Alert.
Rossby waves form in all rotating fluids, but on the Sun their amplitude and period are very small, making them difficult to detect. The researchers analyzed data from six years of photosphere observations made with the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The high resolution of the images obtained made it possible to observe the movement of individual granules - granular formations on the surface of the Sun, formed by plasma convection. The diameter of the granule reaches about 1.6 thousand kilometers.
The motion of the granules made it possible to detect stable huge vortices that exist in the bowels of the sun at a depth of 20 thousand kilometers. According to the researchers, they received more convincing evidence of Rossby waves than American astrophysicists, who tracked the movement of bright elements in the structure of the solar corona. The new work did not confirm the connection between waves in the upper layers of the sun's atmosphere and disturbances in its depths.
In the future, scientists plan to study how Rossby waves affect the state of the stellar atmosphere and space weather, which characterizes the influence of the Sun on the Earth's magnetic field.
Rossby waves on our planet are formed in oceans and the atmosphere of temperate latitudes and represent periodic propagating disturbances. They have a great influence on the earth's weather (for example, they cause flooding in the Balkans).