Indian scientists have unraveled the science behind plasma beams. In their research, they showed that the 4th state of matter consists of electrically charged particles that occur throughout the sun’s chromosphere. This is the atmospheric layer just above the visible surface of the sun. Read all about the researcher that the Indian astronomers put together below.
What were the researchers’ findings?
A team of interdisciplinary researchers from India and the UK has explained the origin of ‘spicules’ on the sun, using laboratory experiments as an analogy. They found that the physics underlying paint rays when excited on a loudspeaker is analogous to the solar plasma rays.
These jets, or spicules, appear as thin grass-like plasma structures that constantly shoot up from the surface and are then knocked down by gravity. The amount of energy and momentum these spicules can carry is fundamental in solar and plasma astrophysics. The processes by which plasma is supplied to the solar wind and the solar atmosphere is heated to a million degrees Celsius. To this day, this is still a mystery.
Directed by #astronomers @IIABengaluru a team of interdisciplinary #researchers from India and UK, unraveling #science behind plasma rays that occur all over the sun’s chromosphere.@DrJitendraSingh @srivaric @fiddlingstars @azimpremjiuniv
pic.twitter.com/TpzlkhDvpX— DSTIndia (@IndiaDST) March 7, 2022
About the researchers who came up with the finding
Led by astronomers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. from India conceived a team consisting of Sahel Dey, a doctoral student at IIA and IISc, Dr. Piyali Chatterjee of IIA and Dr. Murthy OVSN of Azim Premji University de Research† They were also assisted by UK-based researchers, namely Dr Marianna Korsós from Aberystwyth University and Drs Jiajia Liu and Chris Nelson from Queen’s University Belfast, and Prof Robertus Erdelyi from the University of Sheffield, UK.
The study challenges this widely held belief to show that solar convection on its own can form all kinds of jets that can be either short or long.
Credit Source: Representative