NEW YORK, BRONX (ORDO News) — Something surprising has happened in the depths of space : astronomers from the Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT-CSTR) have discovered an unusual phenomenon on the Sun that resembles an aurora, but is observed at an altitude of 40,000 km above the cold, dark region of the star. The results of this study were published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The lead author of the study, Xiji Yu, noted that the detected polarized radio bursts emanating from the sunspot are long-lasting and persist for more than a week, which is a rare phenomenon compared to the usual short-lived solar radio bursts.
“This is completely different from typical short-lived solar radio bursts, which typically last minutes or hours. This is an exciting discovery that can change our understanding of magnetic processes in stars,” Yu emphasized.
Researchers have found that radio emission is associated with particularly intense magnetic fields of the sunspot. This has sparked interest among astronomers because the results imply the presence of “rotational modulation” similar to the cosmic beacon effect associated with neutron stars.
It is emphasized that these auroras are different from those on Earth, occurring at frequencies from hundreds of thousands of kHz to about 1 million kHz. According to Yu, this is because the sunspot’s magnetic field is thousands of times stronger than Earth’s.
“However, unlike Earth’s auroras, these sunspot auroras occur at frequencies ranging from hundreds of thousands of kHz to about 1 million kHz—a direct result of the sunspot’s magnetic field being thousands of times stronger than Earth’s,” Yu added.
The discovery is believed to provide a better understanding of intense solar radio bursts and an opportunity to study similar processes on other stars with larger starspots.
—
Online:
News agencies contributed to this report, edited and published by ORDO News editors.
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.
To eliminate any confusion arising from different time zones and daylight saving changes, all times displayed on our platforms are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).