New X-ray observations of the sun could help unravel the mystery of the star’s unexplained hot outer atmosphere, the corona. Sun is a flawless element of the sky above by landcannot be ignored while bathing our planet with light. However, not all of this light is visible to our eyes, which only see a relatively narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum. new observations NASA Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope (NuSTAR) discovered the high-energy light of our star that our eyes cannot detect.

on the picture, Posted by NASA On Friday, February 10, patches of high-energy X-rays captured by the NuStar telescope are visible as bright blue dots. NuStar data combined with low-energy X-ray observations taken by the Japanese spacecraft Hinodeultraviolet images displayed and obtained in shades of green NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is shown in red.

Solving the mystery of the warming of the solar corona

NuStar’s observations are particularly valuable as it reveals the hottest regions on the Sun’s surface. Scientists believe that these superheated regions randomly scattered across the Sun’s surface may help solve one of the Sun’s oldest and most pressing mysteries: why the upper layers of the Sun’s atmosphere, crownmuch hotter than the surface.

Generally accepted composition theories stars The deeper layers are assumed to be hotter, and this is true everywhere on the Sun except where it passes through the corona, the upper atmosphere, which can reach temperatures of up to 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit (2 million degrees Celsius). The photosphere below, which is 500 times colder at about 6,200 degrees F (3,700 degrees C).

NASA says As heat from the sun escapes its core, it’s as strange as the air around a fire that’s 100 times hotter than the fire’s own flames.

The source of this type of unexpected warming may be: nano flares, small flashes of heat and light in the Sun’s atmosphere. they are smaller than usual sunlight, but like their larger cousins, they also produce material hotter than the average coronal temperature. Normal flares don’t happen often enough to heat the corona, but nano-flares can happen more often, perhaps often enough to cause overheating.

Individual nanoflares are too faint to see in sunlight, but NuSTAR can detect radiation emitted from high-temperature material generated by multiple nanoflares occurring simultaneously in one location. This may eventually allow solar physicists to see the frequency of nanoflames, how they release energy, and thus whether they are responsible for heating the corona.

The data for this new mosaic image is from NASA’s spacecraft. Parker Solar ProbeTouching the Sun, it made its 12th close pass of a star, stripped the outer edges of its corona, and got closer to the sun than any spacecraft had ever been able to do.

Correlating NuSTAR observations of the sun with data collected during Parker Solar Probe personal visits, researchers can attribute visible activity on the Sun to samples of the solar atmosphere collected by the spacecraft. Observing these small extremely hot regions shows that although NuSTAR is primarily designed to detect distant objects and events outside the Solar System such as collapsed stars and black holes, it can also reveal a lot of information about the Sun. Because this telescope can only see part of the Sun’s orbit around Earth, the image consists of 25 superimposed images taken in June 2022.