How Solar Flares and Magnetic Fields are Connected
The Sun is one of the most mysterious celestial bodies for heliophysicists and astronomers. It’s impossible to approach it within the framework of an expedition because its surface is too hot—about 5,000 degrees. Nevertheless, Earth, the third planet in the Solar System, has not yet burned up under the powerful rays of this star.
Experts claim that we are inside what is called the solar corona. It covers space up to Pluto and beyond. The halo we can observe during an eclipse is just a part of this corona, visible to the human eye.
However, until now, scientists have been unable to determine what it consists of and why the heating inside it is about a million degrees, while the surface of the Sun itself is only five thousand.
The key theory explaining the principle of the solar corona’s action has been the so-called “solar events”—flares and mass ejections. But a new study published by American scientists in The Astrophysical Journal offers a different explanation.
It turns out that weak magnetic fields of the Sun create a kind of “greenhouse effect” in the solar corona. The point is that such fields, unlike the strongest ones, remain almost constant and cover most of the celestial body.
The Sun is covered by magnetic arches, forming “domes.” They trap charged particles and heat inside. As a result, such a “dome” can act like a dam or a barrier. Weak magnetic fields are much more numerous than strong ones, and they are present all the time, both during solar activity and during calm periods.
Thus, the solar cycle itself actually has no effect on the mechanism of the solar corona.