NASA Creates An Enthralling Video Displaying The Sun's Elusive Magnetic Field

Solar scientist Holly Gilbert, working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has released the first ever computational model video of the Sun’s magnetic field. Couple of times every month, our Sun experiences intense explosions on its surface – a physical process accelerating the pace of solar storms and disturbances. NASA’s eighteen super cameras aided by computer simulation techniques has now developed a video which reveals the Sun’s magnetic field lines.

The Sun, a hot ball of plasma has a complex magnetic field which varies across the surface of the Sun. Its polar field is 1–2 gauss (0.0001–0.0002 T), whereas the field is typically 3,000 gausses (0.3 T) in sunspots and 10–100 gauss (0.001–0.01 T) in solar prominences. The Sun’s magnetic field is of great importance as it affects the weather for e.g. Auroras observed in some sections of the atmosphere. Dean Pesnell, a space scientist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland explained that scientists are not sure of the exact location where the magnetic field is created but they guess that it might exist close to the solar surface, deep inside the Sun – or even over a wide range of depths.

The video represented magnetic field lines using either green, pink or white colors symbolizing the South Pole, North Pole and closed loops respectively. The shape of the magnetic fields above the sun's surface can be observed because they guide the motion of the plasma- a gas-like state of matter in which electrons and ions are separated, creating a super-hot mix of charged particles. The extremely hot plasma that blows on the Sun as "solar winds", a stream of charged particles- mostly protons and electrons, that escape into the Sun's outer atmosphere at high speeds and streams out into the solar system, thereby creating a distinct magnetic field.

Using a magnetograph, an instrument designed to measure the magnetic field of magnetic loops, a precise idea of the nature of the Sun’s magnetic field was obtained. Scientists finally recorded their observations, made accurate measurements of the magnetic field strength and direction on the solar surface and also developed an understanding of how the solar material moves to induce the magnetic effects. They also developed a much awaited video allowing you to witness the Sun’s invisible magnetic field.

The researchers were able to see how the magnetic fields change, grow or recede from January 2011 to July 2014. Simulations such as the Potential Field Source Surface (PFSS) were used to create a model which will offer us a better look at the very source for our existence, the Sun.

Watch the video here:



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