Keith Cooper is a freelance science journalist and editor in the United Kingdom, and has a degree in physics and astrophysics from the University of Manchester.
An image of the sun in space, with a dark shadow partially covering it where the moon crosses in front of it.Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsSign up to our monthly entertainment newsletter to keep up with all our coverage of the latest sci-fi and space movies, tv shows, games and books.
Discover this week's must-see night sky events, moon phases, and stunning astrophotos. Sign up for our skywatching newsletter and explore the universe with us!Space.com's Sci-Fi Reader's Club. Read a sci-fi short story every month and join a virtual community of fellow science fiction fans!The sun's powerful magnetic dynamo that drives sunspot activity and contributes to unleashing powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections has been confirmed as existing 124,000 miles beneath the sun's visible surface — equivalent to 16 Earth widths' deep.photons, so the solar magnetic field cannot be generated there. Instead, all the convection takes place in the sun's outer-third, in the suitably named convective zone.The sun hasn't looked like this since 2022, what's going on? Some scientists had wondered whether the sun's magnetic dynamo was situated in a narrow near-surface layer, or perhaps extends throughout the entire convective layer. The most popular hypothesis, however, has been that the magnetic dynamo is generated at the boundary between the lower convective zone and the inner radiative zone. We call this boundary the tachocline, and through about 30 years' worth of studying oscillations reverberating across the sun's visible surface — the photosphere — and its deep interior, Krishnendu Mandal and Alexander Kosovichev of the New Jersey Institute of Technology have found direct evidence that the dynamo is generated there. "For years we suspected the tachocline was important for the solar dynamo, but now we have clear observational evidence," said Mandal in a." until now, we simply hadn't heard enough from inside the star to be certain where the Sun's intense magnetic fields are organized.", which launched in 1995, and the National Solar Observatory's ground-based Global Oscillation Network Group of six telescopes around the world that came online that same year.Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors Both SOHO and GONG are still in operation, and between them they measure the changing pattern of oscillations rippling through the photosphere every 45 to 60 seconds. The oscillations are influenced by the structure of the Sun's interior, which is defined by flows of plasma within the convective layer. The temperature and motion of these rotational flows of plasma therefore affect the period and amplitude of the oscillations as they pass through the flows before breaking through the photosphere. Mandal and Kosovichev found that these rotating bands of plasma inside the Sun form a butterfly pattern that matches the way the location ofchanges across the sun's 11-year cycle of magnetic activity. Sunspots are cooler patches of the sun created by magnetic fields looping out through the photosphere. As such, they are a fingerprint of the Sun's magnetic field. Super-Earth exoplanets may have built-in magnetic protection from churning magma — and that's good news for life"Now, with nearly three 11-year solar cycles' of data, we're finally seeing clear patterns take shape that give us a window inside the star," said Mandal The measurements show that this butterfly pattern originates from the tachocline, 200,000 kilometers below the sunspots on the photosphere. In the tachocline, the rotation of plasma is distinct from the convective layer above, with more shearing motions that drive electric current generating the magnetic field. "Rotating bands originating from magnetic structural changes near the sun's tachocline can take several years to propagate to the surface," said Mandal."Tracking these internal changes gives us a clear picture of how the solar cycle unfolds." A diagram showing the layers of the sun. The core, radiative zone and convection zone are part of the inner structure.Moreover, a better understanding of how the sun's magnetic field is generated, and how it manifests on the surface in active regions that produce sunspots,. Eruptions from the sun can send clouds of charged particles heading our way, which can disrupt satellites, communications and energy grids and endanger astronauts. "While our findings do not yet enable precise predictions of future solar cycles, they highlight the importance of including the tachocline in space weather prediction models," said Mandal."Many current simulations account for processes only on near-surface layers, but our results show the entire convection zone, especially the tachocline, must be considered.". As our Sun is the only star that we can observe close up, it is often used as a baseline for understanding other stars. Keith Cooper is a freelance science journalist and editor in the United Kingdom, and has a degree in physics and astrophysics from the University of Manchester. He's the author of"The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" and has written articles on astronomy, space, physics and astrobiology for a multitude of magazines and websites.The SunIncredible new NASA images reveal Saturn in a new light — and it's all thanks to a telescope team-up from Webb and Hubble'For All Mankind' is confirmed for season 6, but it'll be the final mission for Apple TV's incredible space show 'For All Mankind' is confirmed for season 6, but it'll be the final mission for Apple TV's incredible space show
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