Groundbreaking research has revealed a new era of solar observation, as an international team has produced the first-ever global maps of the sun’s coronal magnetic field. These findings provide invaluable insights into the processes driving intense solar storms that can impact crucial technologies on Earth, from power grids to communication systems. The Sun is the primary source of these disruptive solar events, and this innovative mapping technique is a significant step towards better understanding and predicting their impact.
Charting the Unseen
Scientists have for the first time been able to make near-daily measurements of how the sun’s global coronal magnetic field changes over time. The discovery — which came from a team of researchers in Mexico that published it in the prestigious journal Science — is a real game-changer for how we view the sun.
Until now, standard polarimetric techniques have had restricted success to understand the sun’s magnetism as they can only probe certain areas in the solar corona, the sun’s upper atmosphere. Despite this, by combining two different sources of data, coronal seismology and a new instrument called the Upgraded Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (UCoMP), scientists have been able to get a consistent and comprehensive view of the magnetic field over all regions of the solar surface. You get what is similar to the sublime experience of a total solar eclipse, but nearly on a daily basis.
Revealing the Mysteries of Solar Storms
What causes these solar storms is something called the sun’s magnetic field, which can have damning effects on power grids, communication systems and even technologies in space like GPS. For decades, it has been a mystery how this magnetic field accumulates energy and erupts in these enormous explosions, but new global maps are now offering answers.
Between February and October, the researchers were able to create 114 magnetic field maps — that corresponds roughly to one every second day. This unparalleled clarity and regularity constitute a vital improvement in forecasting the powerful solar storms with far-reaching impacts on our technology-laden world. On top of that, the scientists obtained the first-ever measurements of the coronal magnetic field in these polar areas for which no data has been available up until now, since they corresponded to regions of the sun’s corona that were not straight above and therefore invisible.
A Deeper Dive into the Sun
The achievement with the UCoMP instrument has been an important breakthrough in global coronal magnetic field mapping, but it still represents a 2D projection. In the future, to get a full three-dimensional picture of both the structure and evolution of the magnetic field on our sun, they will have to combine this data with results from other techniques like those used by the National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST).
In the future, the researchers are also investigating building a 1.5 meter-wide solar refractor telescope called Coronal Solar Magnetism Observatory (COSMO) to be able to image sun’s entire global magnetic field in greater detail. By combining this data with complementary perspectives, scientists are hoping to reconstruct the entire three-dimensional view of the sun’s magnetic field — which is essential for improved forecasting and readiness for solar storms that can have large impacts on life in America.
