For the first time, a research team from several US universities has been able to observe a complete cycle of one of the smallest types of solar flares, which represents a leap on the way to answering the most important question in the field of sun physics for more than 50 years.

Nanoflares are not - in fact - small to us, as one of them equals the amount of 10,000 nuclear bombs exploding at once, but compared to the known solar flares, they are very small in size and power.

This type of eruption was discovered in the 1970s, where scientists found that although the usual solar eruptions do not occur regularly, as weeks or even months may pass without us seeing one of them, infinitesimal solar eruptions occur all the time.

Little sun

To study infinitesimal solar flares, this research team used two of the most accurate solar observatories in history, the first being "IRIS", which is a satellite that studies the layers of the surface of the sun, and the second is the Solar Dynamics Observatory - "SD" Or "(SDO) - which aims to study the circumference of the sun and not its surface itself.

According to the study, which was published in Nature Astronomy and announced by NASA in an official press release issued on December 23, IRIS helped the research team to find an explosion. An infinitesimal solar appeared as a burning ring on the surface of the sun at a temperature several times its surroundings.

Close-up shot of one of the rings of small solar flares that the study worked on (NASA)

After focusing more on that point, the team members noticed that the constituents behaved counter-intuitively, as the silicon atoms were more reactive and faster than the lighter hydrogen atoms, and it is like throwing two balls, light and heavy, to the ground, and you find that the heavy ball runs faster without Obvious reason.

But one of the hypotheses in the physics of the sun explains this behavior, as it says that the main secret of the heat of the solar corona is related to infinitesimal solar explosions, which transfer energy to them and heat them, and during that silicon can flow faster than hydrogen.

Secrets of the sun crown

We know that the surface temperature of the sun is about 6 thousand degrees Celsius, but the corona around the sun is about a million degrees Celsius, and this is surprising, if you light a fire, the areas closest to the center of the fire will be the hottest, and then the weather will gradually cool down as you move away from it, but on the sun it happens The opposite.

And during the last 50 years, that was the biggest mystery of the physics of the Sun.

Scientists explain this that something happening on the surface of the sun is what transmits that intense heat to the solar corona, and a team of them believes that these tiny solar eruptions may be the cause.

Although they are "very small", they occur permanently and can - holistically - have a major effect.

According to the study, the research team - at that point - resorted to the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), to monitor the relationship between the moment of this infinitesimal solar explosion and the turbulence in the temperature of the solar corona after its occurrence.

The results indicated that the solar corona had already experienced a significant rise in temperature in the region corresponding to this explosion, only 20 seconds after it occurred.

This adds confirmation of the hypothesis that says that the largest mystery of the sun to date appears to be located in the hands of its smallest phenomena.

In spite of this, it is up to this team to work in the future to prove that the overall effect of these tiny solar eruptions is similar to the big difference in the temperature of the entire solar corona, which could change the history of the physics of the sun forever.