NASA Uses Computer Modeling To Show Sun’s Magnetic Field In New Photo


NASA released earlier this week a photo showing the sun’s magnetic field as it appeared less than a week prior, offering a glimpse of what has been described as one of the many solar “explosions” that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye.

The photo was posted on Thursday on the NASA website, and as explained in a brief news release, scientists from the space agency’s Solar Dynamics Observatory used computer modeling techniques to create an image of the sun’s magnetic field as it appeared on Friday, August 10. NASA noted that a good number of the field lines were found concentrated at the sun’s right central area, and to a lesser degree at the right edge.

As further explained in a report from Live Science, the phenomenon depicted in NASA’s new photo could be considered as an example of how the sun is “constantly exploding.” Although such events are almost impossible for human eyes to actually see, these are intense reactions that take place as massive amounts of plasma, radiation, and electromagnetic energy falls from the sun’s surface.

According to Live Science, the white lines found on NASA’s photo represent “powerful” electromagnetic eruptions that happen whenever the extremely hot, highly charged particles that make up both the sun’s magnetic field and surface plasma interact with each other. The publication added that some of the solar eruptions depicted can reach such great distances, resulting in solar winds and other weather-related quirks, while others move back and forth from the sun’s surface, potentially causing even more extreme solar weather disturbances.

“These returning loops of magnetic energy can further stir the pot of charged particles on the sun’s surface, resulting in more and greater explosions of solar weather, including solar flares and big belches of radiation known as coronal mass ejections,” Live Science explained.

Although the sun is at a relative lull at the moment due to where it is in its magnetic field’s 11-year cycle of activity, the end of this cycle, which is known as a solar maximum, has often been preceded by an increase in solar weather disturbances, including some where humans felt the impact of solar storms in one way or another. One such example was the Carrington event of September 1859, which resulted in auroras, or northern lights becoming visible in southern locations such as Cuba and Hawaii, and telegraph system disruptions.

Likewise, the Canadian province of Quebec suffered a complete blackout on March 13, 1989, due to a solar storm, with auroras again appearing in areas as far south as Cuba and Texas, as recalled by Scientific American in a 2009 article. While both the Carrington event and the Quebec blackout took place at a time when the sun’s magnetic field was close to solar maximum, Live Science noted that the last solar maximum period, which happened in April 2014, was “much less eventful” in comparison.

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