NSF's National Solar Observatory: Unlocking the mysteries of th… (@nso.edu.web.brid.gy)

The Sun’s Atmosphere Pulses With Hidden Twisting Waves Using the world’s most powerful solar telescope, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, built and operated by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO) near the summit of Maui’s Haleakalā, scientists have been able to uncover the presence of elusive torsional Alfvén waves—tiny back and forth magnetic twists rippling through the Sun’s outermost atmospheric layer, the corona. Long suspected but never clearly observed, these small-scale waves continuously twist solar magnetic fields, and may help explain both how the corona stays so hot, and how the stream of charged particles that flows outward from it, known as the solar wind, is powered. At millions of degrees hotter than the Sun’s visible surface, which is only about 10,000 °F (or 5,500 °C), the reason for why the corona is so hot remains an unsolved astrophysical mystery. https://nso.edu/blog/the-suns-atmosphere-pulses-with-hidden-twisting-waves/