Small-scale magnetism leads to large-scale solar atmosphere

Thanks to close-up images of the sun obtained during Solar Orbiter's perihelion passage of October 2022, solar physicists have seen how fleeting magnetic fields at the solar surface build up into the solar atmosphere.

NASA's NICER telescope sees hot spots merge on a magnetar

For the first time, NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) has observed the merging of multimillion-degree X-ray spots on the surface of a magnetar, a supermagnetized stellar core no larger than a city.

A solar illusion: Coronal loops may not be what they seem

Many coronal loops—ropey strands of plasma that scientists have long thought existed in the Sun's atmosphere—may actually be optical illusions, according to a new paper that challenges prevailing assumptions of what we ...

Heating the solar corona

The hot outer layer of the sun, the corona, has a temperature of over a million degrees Kelvin, much more than the surface temperature of the Sun which is only about 5500 degrees Kelvin. Moreover, the corona is very active ...

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