Chaotic magnetic field lines may answer the coronal heating problem
Wednesday, August 9, 2017 - 13:32
in Astronomy & Space
It is known that the sun's corona—the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere—is roughly 100 times hotter than its photosphere—the sun's visible layer. The reason for this mysterious heating of the solar coronal plasma, however, is not yet entirely understood. A research team in India has developed a set of numerical computations to shed light on this phenomenon, and present this week in Physics of Plasmas, analysis examining the role of chaotic magnetic fields in potential heating mechanisms.