Solar flares and various forms of space weather can cause significant disruptions to spaceflight and satellite telecommunications. But scientists’ attempts to find a solution to this problem are complicated by the fact that laboratory experiments on Earth are subject to gravity, resulting in very different results from conditions in space.

A recent study by physicists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) may have finally found a solution to this problem, which could be an important step towards protecting people and equipment and keeping satellites working properly during space missions. The researchers’ findings were recently published in a journal. Physical Review Letters.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have effectively recreated the type of gravity found on or near stars and other planets in a glass sphere 3 centimeters (about 1.2 inches) in diameter. To do this, they used sound waves to create a spherical gravitational field and plasma convection, a process in which gas cools as it approaches the surface of an object, then reheats and rises again as it approaches the core, creating a flow of liquid. This creates a magnetic current.

The invention could help scientists overcome the limiting role of gravity in experiments aimed at modeling transport on stars and other planets.

“People were so interested in trying to simulate global convection with laboratory experiments that they put the experiment on the space shuttle because they couldn’t create a strong enough central force field on the ground,” said Seth Putterman, professor of physics. University of California, Los Angeles. – Angeles. senior author of the study. “We’ve shown that our microwave sound system produces such strong gravity that Earth’s gravity is not a factor. We no longer need to go into space to do these experiments.”

Researchers at UCLA used microwaves to heat sulfur gas inside a glass globe to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Sound waves inside the sphere acted like gravity, restricting the movement of hot, weakly ionized gas known as plasma into structures resembling plasma streams in stars.

“Sound fields act like gravity, at least when it comes to convection in a gas,” said John Koulakis, UCLA project scientist and first author of the study. “Using microwave sound in a spherical hot plasma bottle, we got a gravitational field 1,000 times stronger than Earth’s gravity.”

Hot gas rises on Earth’s surface as gravity keeps the denser and cooler gas closer to the planet’s center.

Indeed, the researchers found that hot, luminous gas near the outer half of the sphere was also moving towards the walls of the sphere. Strong, prolonged gravity created turbulence similar to that observed near the Sun’s surface. In the inner half of the sphere, acoustic gravity reversed its direction and diverted it outward, causing the hot gas to sink towards the centre. In the experiment, acoustic gravity naturally kept the hottest plasma at the center of the sphere, where it is also found in stars.