From a University College, London Press Release – Solar winds triggered by magnetic fields
Solar wind generated by the sun is probably driven by a process involving powerful magnetic fields, according to a new study led by UCL researchers based on the latest observations from the Hinode satellite.
Scientists have long speculated on the source of solar winds. The Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS), on board the Japanese-UK-US Hinode satellite, is now generating unprecedented observations enabling scientists to provide a new perspective on the 50-year old question of how solar wind is driven. The collaborative study, published in this month’s issue of Astrophysical Journal, suggests that a process called slipping reconnection may drive these winds.
Deb Baker, lead author from UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, says: “Solar wind is an outflow of million-degree gas and magnetic field that engulfs the Earth and other planets. It fills the entire solar system and links with the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets. Changes in the Sun’s million-mile-per-hour wind can induce disturbances within near-Earth space and our upper atmosphere and yet we still don’t know what drives these outflows.”
“However, our latest study suggests that it is the release of energy stored in solar magnetic fields which provides the additional driver for the solar wind. This magnetic energy release is most efficient in the brightest regions of activity on the Sun’s surface, called active regions or sunspot groups, which are strong concentrations of magnetic field. We believe that this fundamental process happens everywhere on the Sun on virtually all scales.”
Images taken in February 2007 from the EIS instrument showed that hot plasma outflows are due to a process called slipping reconnection. At the edges of active regions where this process can occur, a slow, continuous restructuring of the magnetic field leads to the release of energy and acceleration of particles in the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere, known as the corona. Slipping reconnection is the first theory to explain how observed outflows from the Sun can be located over areas of a single magnetic sign, something previously considered improbable.
Computer models of the Sun’s magnetic field were used to identify regions where slipping reconnection could occur. The locations proposed by the computer model were compared with measurements of the speed of the gas coming from the solar corona. The comparison showed the gas was moving outward at up to 100,000 mph, 1,000 times the wind speed in a hurricane, over the possible slipping reconnection regions.
The study was carried out by the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Observatoire de Paris, Konkoly Observatory in Hungary and Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio in Argentina. Deborah Baker is funded by a Science and Technology Funding Council (STFC) studentship.
Hinode is a Japanese mission developed and launched by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISIS) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) as domestic partner and NASA and STFC (UK) as international partners. It is operated by these agencies in co-operation with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Norwegian Space Centre (NSC).
Data that served as the basis for the magnetic modelling was provided by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
See the Research paper in The Astrophysical Journal
vukcevic (02:19:00) :
There is a contradiction here. If it is ‘reconnection’ current that heats up the solar corona than highest temperature should be in vicinity of such reconnection.
And every solar physicist is so stupid that she/he missed that and only the brilliant amateur saw this…
The reconnection that heats the corona happens in the corona, high above the strong magnetic fields of sunspots.
GGM (05:46:10) :
doesn’t that mean that we have the equivalent of an electric circuit flowing out of the sun/solar system ?
No, there are no electric currents flowing out with the solar wind. The solar wind plasma cannot sustain an electric field and there is none in the rest frame of the plasma.
All of these currents WANT to go somewhere? Where ?
since there aren’t any, the question does not arise.
Peter Taylor (05:50:44) :
I thought magnetic fields were implicated in the spatial distribution of the wind
No, the magnetic field is important [via reconnection] in heating the corona. A hot corona expands all by itself.
Isn’t the solar wind one great electric current?
No. There is weak current sheet separating opposite magnetic polarities. This current is created by particles drifting along the boundary, but has otherwise no significance.
How does it then interact with the ionospheric current sheet
The magnetic field in the solar wind reconnects with that of the Earth and [as always] reconnection generates electric currents locally [thus this current does not come all the way from the Sun]
and the huge voltage difference between the top and bottom of the atmosphere
That difference is created and maintained by thunderstorms from below.
and does this have any implications for climate?
and therefore goes the other way: climate controls the difference.
When we get flares, is there a voltage shock?
The sun gets the shock, that is what creates the flare.
beng (07:53:29) :
would the star “skip” all the usual stages of similar-mass, metal-rich stars, and very quickly go supernova
Yes, some of the very first stars were probably very large [100+ solar masses] and quickly exploded. This is an active area of research and our knowledge is scant.
Leif:
One of the effects of nuclear explosions is EMP, with the sun in constant explosion mode is the work done by the sun’s EMP internal or external (in the corona)? Is this magnetically driven solar wind we’re talking about a result of the sun’s EMP process?
Leif Svalgaard (08:23:23) :
“And every solar physicist is so stupid that she/he missed that and only the brilliant amateur saw this…
The reconnection that heats the corona happens in the corona, high above the strong magnetic fields of sunspots.”
Dr. Svalgaard, with due respect that is not an explanation.
The article states: “This magnetic energy release is most efficient in the brightest regions of activity on the Sun’s surface” not somewhere high above as you imply.
Most of energy should be released at point of ‘reconnection’, not high above it. Further away you get from the point of reconnection, current’s energy falls off (due to heat released in the lover layers) so less heating should occur high above.
I am sure you will be able to come up with a better explanation.
Here is temperature graph:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Sun_Atmosphere_Temperature_and_Density_SkyLab.jpg
….when moving charged particles from the Sun are called a “wind” instead of an electric current. Charged particles impinging on a planet or a moon are referred to as a “rain” instead of an electrical discharge. Ionized particles moving within a helical magnetic field are called “jets of hot gas” instead of field-aligned flows of electricity. When abrupt changes in the density and speed of charged particles are observed, those changes are called a “shock wave” instead of a double layer. Birkeland continues to fret from beyond the pale. Stephen Smith
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm
So-called “magnetic reconnection” is a misnomer.
It is plasma motion, i.e., charged particles that generate the magnetic field.
The intensity of the magnetic field is determined by the velocity of the charged particles and the ‘charge density’.
Magnetic fields aren’t “dragged” anywhere.
They emanate from the charged particles as they are moving.
It’s a simple ‘but for’ test.
But for the movement of the charged particles, there would be no magnetic field.
If you want to understand the Sun or anything else that exhibits a magnetic field, you need to observe & measure the underlying motion of the charged particles, electric current.
So-called “magnetic reconnection” is a failed idea that is carried along by it political inertia in astrophysical circles.
A physical explanation to have any validity must encompass and describe all physical forces and particles of matter involved and a name should convey those forces and particles, i.e. electric field, electric current, magnetic field, and electrons & ions.
The appropriate name and one that does convey the forces and particles of matter involved is ‘plasma electric double layer’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_layer_(plasma)
From the Wikipedia entry for plasma double layers:
“A double layer is a structure in a plasma and consists of two parallel layers with opposite electrical charge. The sheets of charge cause a strong electric field and a correspondingly sharp change in voltage (electrical potential) across the double layer. Ions and electrons which enter the double layer are accelerated, decelerated, or reflected by the electric field. In general, double layers (which may be curved rather than flat) separate regions of plasma with quite different characteristics.”
Note the supporting footnotes for the Wikipedia entry.
Magnetic merging theories obscure the synergistic role all of the above forces and particle elements play in this physical process.
It’s not magic “magnetic reconnection”, but physics that has been studied in detail, both in the labortatory and now in space.
Adolfo Giurfa (09:17:41) :
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm
is pseudo-science of the highest carat.
No wonder the Al Gore’s of the world can run things when science literacy is this low.
Pascvaks (08:52:19) :
Is this magnetically driven solar wind we’re talking about a result of the sun’s EMP process?
No, the solar wind is not electromagnetic in nature. It is just a hot gas that happens to have an embedded weak magnetic field in it.
Adolfo Giurfa (09:17:41) :
Birkeland continues to fret from beyond the pale. Stephen Smith
where Smith goes wrong is in his own words:
“charged particles in motion constitute an electric current”.
This is, of course, completely false, as everybody actually knows.
Birkeland’s ideas about the solar wind ‘plasma’ were also completely false. Here is what he actually said in 1916:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Birkeland-1916.pdf
James F. Evans (09:27:21) :
So-called “magnetic reconnection” is a misnomer.
It is plasma motion, i.e., charged particles that generate the magnetic field.
go back and re-read the discussion at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/17/discoveries-from-the-ibex-satellite-show-we-still-dont-know-quite-a-few-things-about-the-heliosphere-and-solar-system/#comments
In a plasma there is no electric field in the rest frame of the plasma. The electric currents that are the causes of ALL effects we see are purely local resulting from plasma moving relative to a magnetic field, especially if two regions of opposite polarities are pressed together [reconnection].
James F. Evans (09:27:21) :
So-called “magnetic reconnection” is a misnomer.
It is plasma motion, i.e., charged particles that generate the magnetic field.
For a good review of modern physics on this, in the laboratory and in space, see: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Yamada-Reconnection-2007.pdf
Read and try to understand the review [it is clearly written so shouldn’t be too difficult] and let us for good close the book on the Electric Thunderbolts. You are just diluting the information flow on the blog with your refusal to learn.
Adolfo Giurfa (09:17:41) :
Thank you, that page provided a lot of “aha!” insights in a short space. It all fits.
James F. Evans (09:27:21) :
Thank you, that amplified the above.
So… we normally think of electricity as needing a wire, but in fact, it seems that an electric current is perfectly well defined simply as a movement of electrons… or other charged particles… in any medium including space… and this is what is happening with the solar wind. Next inference: the magnetic field is a by-product of the moving charged particles.
However, I’m partial to Zero Point Field expositions – which might precede both the electric and the magnetic aspects of solar wind formation…
Is it possible a Plasma welding machine without power?
All these “new discoveries” and “surprises” were made decades ago.
The reason you never hear of them is because the gravity based
model of the universe is completely wrong and mainstream science
could never admit to it directly.
We live in an Electric Universe.
-one that is ruled by the physics of plasma, electromagnetics
and resonance.
One of the “inconvenient truths” they always conveniently leave out is the word “electro” whenever it turns out “magnetism” was the cause for
some solar or space phenomena.
Of course the solar winds are electromagnetically driven, -they are a
form of plasma (electricaly charged gas-ie: the “the hot gas”)
It has recently even been proven the sun and earth are directly linked
via an electrical conduit.
Even the Electric Sun model has been recently verified.
You will soon learn what has always been forbidden to tell:
-that we live in an “Electric Universe”
Over the next 3 years you will hear about more and more
new discoveries in electromagnetics,
Much of the “unexplained” phenomina will ultimately be
found to be caused by electromagnetics. (or just the politically correct, Magnetics) -this will include gravity.
-More reports of how EMF radiation is harmful to the body will appear… (this is because our bodies are not only electromagnetic “antennas”, but also are completely controlled by electromagnetic resonance. (we can be made sick or healthy by simply being exposed to the correct, pulsed electromagnetic field)
The sun is rapidly changing its resonant field and energy output
in part, due to the new higher frequency cosmic energy
that the solar system is being exposed to as we flow through
the electromagnetic plasma fields this in this region of space,
They will no longer be able to ignore the obvious.
Discover how the universe really works (no fantasy theoretical
math theories required)
You can start at the home of the Electric Universe
Model here:
“The Explosion that Shattered Solar Theory”
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051201protonstorm.htm
Wal Thornhill, David Scott and Donald E. Scott, and the entire
EU community provide daily, simple pictorial examples of what
mystifies mainstream science
Search on Electric Universe, Electric Sun and Plasma cosmology
Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “No, the solar wind is not electromagnetic in nature. It is just a hot gas that happens to have an embedded weak magnetic field in it.”
This description leaves out salient facts:
It is not “just hot gas”, rather, it is charged particles, free electrons & ions, plasma.
Plasma and neutral “hot” gas behave differently.
Plasma in motion emanates a magnetic field, and where free electrons & ions are in proximity there will be coulomb attraction between electrons & ions.
Neutral “hot” gas in motion does not cause a magnetic field. Nor would there be any components of electric fields, the coulomb attraction between free electrons & ions, because all the the atoms would be neutral neither having electric or magnetic properties.
A solar wind composed soley of neutral atoms would behave quite differently, if it could even function at all.
The aggregation of the coulomb attraction between free electrons & ions is the electric field.
Both electric properties and magnetic properties are present in the solar wind.
When such as are both present it is appropriate to term the solar wind an electromagnetic process, since both forces are present in the solar wind principally focussed in the helio current sheet.
The term “embedded” is a misnomer, it is misleading.
Plasma in motion emanates a magnetic field.
“embedded”
“emanate”
Two distinct and opposite meanings.
Such is the importance of proper diction to convey proper explanation.
Lucy Skywalker (11:12:15) :
Adolfo Giurfa (11:27:19) :
soundwash (12:08:36) :
James F. Evans (12:09:39) :
It seems that the woodwork is yielding a bountiful gaggle. As I said, no wonder our politicians can exploit the public when its scientific literacy is this low.
Dr. Svalgard:
Instead of offering a vapid cheap shot with zero content, why don’t you challenge specifics, say in my comment.
Otherwise, it seems your comment is insipid hot air.
Leif, I’m shocked at the tone of your reply. I was careful in my summary of what I personally had understood.
I said, So… we normally think of electricity as needing a wire, but in fact, it seems that an electric current is perfectly well defined simply as a movement of electrons… or other charged particles… in any medium including space… and this is what is happening with the solar wind. Next inference: the magnetic field is a by-product of the moving charged particles.
I think your cavalier dismissal of that, without further explanation, is unwarranted, and does not help the science progress. What is wrong with my statement? I am interested, and am here to speak and listen, but I expect listening in return. Frequently I appreciate your appreciation of detail facts. I had thought that Nigel Calder was criticizing you too freely, but now I am not sure. Please can we keep to factual discussion rather than empty dismissals.
Leif Svalgaard (08:23:23) :
“And every solar physicist is so stupid that she/he missed that and only the brilliant amateur saw this…The reconnection that heats the corona happens in the corona, high above the strong magnetic fields of sunspots.”
Coronal heating problem is still a puzzle to many solar scientists. There are two hypothesis:
– magnetic reconnection
– Wave heating theory
Neither answers all the questions.
It appears that Dr. Svalgaard favors magnetic reconnection, but the ‘science is not settled’ on this one.
Lucy Skywalker (14:23:42) :
I think your cavalier dismissal of that, without further explanation, is unwarranted, and does not help the science progress.
We have wasted scores of posts and thousands of words [many being direct attacks on my person] in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/17/discoveries-from-the-ibex-satellite-show-we-still-dont-know-quite-a-few-things-about-the-heliosphere-and-solar-system/
This is no empty dismissal.
And the misconceptions of the others mentioned are not science, but are in fact hurtful for the understanding of the science involved. I’m sorry that you got caught up in their net. You might begin by consulting the link I supplied and ask questions about that http://www.leif.org/EOS/Yamada-Reconnection-2007.pdf
It serves no purpose to discuss the misconceptions [again] and, to be frank, the nonsense, espoused by the Electric Universe cult. The ‘best science blog’ is not served by their pseudo-science. I have always tried to listen and to answer, but always within sound science and solid physics. When I speculate, I mark it as such.
vukcevic (14:57:34) :
It appears that Dr. Svalgaard favors magnetic reconnection, but the ‘science is not settled’ on this one.
It appears that the authors of the study that is the topic of this thread favor magnetic reconnection. One reason is that the wave theory has always had problems of different kinds. Science is never ‘settled’. At any point in time there is one or a few ideas that we accept because they seem to work with the data we have at the moment.
To paraphrase Homer:
Mmm, plasma: The cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems.
More of it in the universe than any other state of matter, and we know next to doodly-squat about it, next to what we know about the fundamental forces, that is…
An earlier post here on WUWT that shows how divided some individuals are over the MU vs EU dialogue:
http://www.wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/01/new-mission-to-study-crossed-magnetic-streams-and-magnetic-portals/
Magnetic ‘slipping’ reconnection was being discussed and debated in comments to that post as well.
There seems to be debate between either a MU or a EU.
Some time ago, I had heard about E.U. and thought it was kind of faddy. You step over to NASA and the message there is mixed. No links nessasary. You get my point.
In my opinion, there seems to be more and more science backing a M.U. than the faddy E.U.
Probably the one piece of evidence that sort of puts the nail in the EU coffin for me is how magnetic and electric fields react to black holes. Gases, plasma, etc. get drawn in by swirling magnetic fields that intensify and amplify the closer they get to the black hole. Probably due to slipping reconnection, the magnetic fields. flux , lines, whatever, continue to flow galactic material toward their fate. So while light (electric current) can’t avoid a black hole, magnetism continues to ‘slip’ and reconnect into infinity.
My point is, if light can’t escape a black hole and magnetism can somehow do some kind of wicked dance above the no-return threshold, how can everthing be connected, electrically. And since magnetism is isotropic and hemogenous, why can’t we accept the M.U. Because its not the new fad?
I never was much into fads. Well, there was that time in the 70’s and bell bottom jeans, but let’s no go there. 🙂
ok, thanks Leif, I shall study both.
With regard to the IBEX thread mentioned above, and the discovery of the ribbon of ENAs across the heliosphere, it is a point of great interest that Electric Universe theorist Wal Thornhill has made four very specific predictions based on the EU model.
from “Electric Sun Verified”
holoscience.com
first prediction:
“Given the detail in this model we should expect, as more data comes in, that researchers may find in the ENA “ribbon,” bright spots, filamentary structures, and movement of the bright spots consistent with rotation of Birkeland current filament pairs and their possible coalescence.”
second prediction:
‘Researchers are keen to see how changes in the solar wind affect the ENA observations as the sun moves toward the maximum of its 11-year cycle. Such observations are very important. The solar cycle is controlled by its local galactic Z-pinch, so any variation in ENA’s may provide some clues about the origin of the quasi-cyclic variability in the circuit supplying DC electrical power to the Sun or “solar cycle.” The “brightness” of the ENA’s should vary, probably out of phase with the solar cycle.’