There has been a breakthrough in the study of the physics of the Sun – scientists have learned to make maps of the magnetic fields of its atmosphere

Scientists from the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) have presented the world’s first detailed maps of the magnetic fields of the solar atmosphere (corona). The work done is only the beginning of a total mapping of the coronal magnetosphere. This is a new level in the study of the physics of our native star, which will make it possible to predict almost all phenomena on the Sun, from sunspots to coronal ejections, and this is the path to predicting space weather in our system.

Image source: NASA/SDO

Innovative maps of magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere were obtained by the new and largest ground-based solar telescope in the world. Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, DKIST. He began scientific work in February 2022 and has already obtained the most detailed images of our star, where the resolution of each pixel corresponded to 20 km. It would seem that what should we actually look for under a microscope on the Sun? Nevertheless, scientists have a more or less complete understanding of the large-scale physical processes on our star, but they are not able to understand the details even today.

To identify magnetic lines (fields) in the solar corona, scientists used a cryogenically cooled spectrometer connected to the DKIST telescope. Using a coronagraph, researchers could observe the solar atmosphere in isolation from the surface and simultaneously record its spectrum in the near-infrared range. In particular, the researchers were interested in the spectrum of iron in the star’s atmosphere. There is such a thing as the Zeeman effect. It describes the splitting of spectral lines of atoms in a magnetic field.

Map of magnetic fields of the solar corona

The spectrometer easily detects line splitting up to determining the polarization of magnetic field lines. All this allows us to see in detail the distribution of tension lines in the corona. If we know how magnetic field lines are distributed in the solar atmosphere, we can predict the appearance, size and shape of sunspots, the intensity of flares and the directions of coronal mass ejections. The sun will become predictable. This will be a kind of victory over him.

«Mapping the magnetic field strength in the corona is a fundamental scientific breakthrough not only for solar system research, but also for astronomy in general, say the study authors. “This is the beginning of a new era in which we will understand how stellar magnetic fields influence planets here in our own solar system and in the thousands of exoplanetary systems we now know about.”