Seems like GMU doesn’t stop, waiting for Dave Clarke and John Mashey to launch the next copygate volley. Here’s some interesting research.
FAIRFAX, Va., June 15, 2011—George Mason University scientists discovered recently that a phenomenon called a giant magnetic rope is the cause of solar storms. Confirming the existence of this formation is a key first step in helping to mitigate the adverse effects that solar storm eruptions can have on satellite communications on Earth.
The discovery was made by associate professor Jie Zhang and his graduate student Xin Cheng using images from the NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) spacecraft.
Though the magnetic rope was believed to be the cause of these giant eruptions on the Sun, scientists had previously not been able to prove this phenomenon existed because of how quickly the rope moves.
However, through close examination of images taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) telescope on board the SDO, Zhang was able to pinpoint an area of the sun where a magnetic rope was forming. The AIA telescope suite is able to capture images of the Sun every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day. This unprecedented
cadence in time helped the discovery.
“The magnetic rope triggers a solar eruption. Scientists have been debating whether or not this magnetic rope exists before a solar eruption. I believe that the result of this excellent observation helps finally solve this controversial issue,” says Zhang.
A solar storm is a violent eruption from the Sun, sending billions of tons of charged material, also called plasma, into space at a speed of more than one million miles per hour. The cloud of plasma carries with it a strong magnetic field. When the magnetized cloud reaches Earth one to three days later, a huge amount of energy is deposited into the magnetosphere of the Earth.
Normally the Earth’s magnetosphere shields this harmful solar wind and protects the environment. However, a solar storm has the potential to disrupt the shielding effect and produce severe space weather, which can have harmful effects on a wide array of technological systems, including satellite operation, communication and navigation and electric power grids.
Zhang’s research will help in giving early warning about solar storms and help to minimize the damage done by space weather here on Earth.
“Understanding the eruption process of these storms will definitely help us better predict them,” says Zhang. “We cannot prevent solar storms, just like we cannot prevent earthquakes or volcanoes. But the development of prediction capacity can help mitigate adverse effects. For instance, satellite operators can power-down key systems to prevent the possible damage to the systems.”
It is widely believed that magnetic fields in the Sun play an essential role in storing energy and powering solar storms. However, the exact form that magnetic field lines take prior to the eruption are highly controversial. Most field lines are semi-circular loops with their foot-points rooted on the surface of the Sun. They cannot erupt easily, and in fact, they often play the role of preventing the eruption.
Scientists suspected that the magnetic rope, if it indeed existed, was the phenomenon that powered the eruption. A magnetic rope contains many magnetic field lines wrapping around a center axis and possibly twisting around each other. Because of the twisting, a strong electric current can be carried by the magnetic rope. Theoretically, the electric current could produce a sufficient electro-magnetic force to overcome the overlying constraining force from other field lines and power the magnetic rope to move outward.
AIA images now reveal that, before an eruption, there is a long and low-lying channel running through the entire active region, which heats to a temperature as high as 10 million degrees, and slowly rises. When it reaches a critical point, it starts to erupt quickly. It is a feature distinctly different from the surrounding magnetic field lines. This particular hot channel is now believed to be the magnetic rope that scientists have been looking for.
Zhang is an associate professor in the School of Physics, Astronomy and Computational Sciences and works with the Space Weather Lab at George Mason University. His results were reported at the American Astronomical Society Solar Physics Division Meeting, held in Las Cruces, New Mexico on June 12 – 16, 2011.
Image-1: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/Figure_1_SDO_171_Full_Size.png
Video-1: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/Movie_1_SDO_171_Full_Size.avi (44 MB)
Image-2: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/Figure_2_SDO_rope_loop.png
Video-2: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/Movie_2_SDO_rope_loop.avi (80 MB)
Caption: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/caption.txt
(Video and images credit: NASA and George Mason University)
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Leif Svalgaard says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:16 pm
“http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/unskilledandunaware.pdf”
This article contains a line “But I wore the juice”. With a slight modification to “But he wore the juice” it becomes a perfect way to express how someone doesn’t understand what they are talking about. It could go down along side other great sayings such as “Putting on the foil coach”.
vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Plasma by its nature is highly layered, this to an observer may appear as a configuration of magnetic lines of force , which of course do not exist, but they are useful theoretical abstraction.
Vuk, please. Stop the nonsense. Read http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/unskilledandunaware.pdf
I admit to knowing very little about this subject at this stage, but nevertheless attribution of *cause* on solar eruptions for the magnetic ropes seems wrong to me. What causes the ropes in the first place and what effect did that process have on the eruption?
Leif-How ironic that you illustrate your absurd argument with a graphic of the right hand rule. Magnetic fields arise from moving charge. The charged particles come first not the magnetic field. Even at infinite distance, a vanishingly small magnetic field arose from the movement of charge way, way far away.
I think Leif and his solar scientist counterparts need to take a good hard look in the mirror.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:59 pm
vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Plasma by its nature is highly layered, this to an observer may appear as a configuration of magnetic lines of force , which of course do not exist, but they are useful theoretical abstraction.
Vuk, please. Stop the nonsense. Read http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/unskilledandunaware.pdf
REPLY: Yeah, I have to agree, Vuk is becoming troll-like in these responses. His statement above is absurd. Vuk, you have earned yourself troll bin status, which means all your posts go to automatica moderation now.- Anthony
“George Mason University scientists discovered recently that a phenomenon called a giant magnetic rope is the cause of solar storms.”
Could they possibly be looking for this term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland_current
Of course they have now found the same types of current around the gas giants and their moons, Venus, Mercury… not just around the earth and its magnetic field and magnetotail. Interestingly they have known about these phenomena for decades and still have not admitted that there are currents travelling through space.
http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wcurrent.html
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Birkeland_current
Leif Svalgaard,
“Bill says:
June 15, 2011 at 12:18 pm
You can’t have a magnetic field in space without moving charge.
Of course you can. The magnetic field from a moving charge extends through space infinitely far away from the charge [unless other fields and charges get in the way]. E.g. ”
Why did you bother to respond to Bill when you simply implied that the current was much farther away and really did not disagree with his statement? I’m still waiting for the explanation of magnetic fields frozen in plasma in space as if the plasma were a solid material. Any new data for us??
Hey um, Leif?
If you have a point to make, make it. Seriously, I mostly lurk here, rarely ever post but I have noticed one habit on your part: A very quick tendency to ad-hom either directly or by association – as you did in this case by linking to an article that is nothing more than a ” master of the obvious” type of statement. I.e., folks with inflated egos, lacking common sense and having a narcissistic view of themselves are of course going to have a tendency to evaluate themselves at a level higher than that what would actually be measured by a third party.
=8-)
Another item not mentioned in the article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-pinch
Z-pinch has been the bane of nuclear fusion experiments since I was in HS and writing a report on the original Tokamak type device.
So we have people arguing over magnetic lines of force. So the magnetic SHEET that Leif and solar scientists are so proud to have mapped is actually a number of lines of force? Uh, could anyone tell me how many lines there are? Maybe an equation for computing the number of lines of force in the sheet?? Maybe there are an INFINITE number of lines meaning that for practical purposes that the sheet is continuous??
Seriously, this is a good discussion. Exactly where does one line start and end?? How does the intensity vary over its width?? Do we need a sheet of paper and metal filings to map them??
kuhnkat says:
June 15, 2011 at 4:11 pm
I’m still waiting for the explanation of magnetic fields frozen in plasma in space as if the plasma were a solid material. Any new data for us??
E.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/yamada10rmp.pdf
mrrabbit says:
June 15, 2011 at 4:23 pm
folks with inflated egos, lacking common sense and having a narcissistic view of themselves are of course going to have a tendency to evaluate themselves at a level higher than that what would actually be measured by a third party
That is what Vuk qualifies for. Read the Justin and Dunning paper and judge for yourself.
Scott Covert says:
Is there a historical database that counts CMEs and direction/ magnitude?
There you go: http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/CME_list/ 🙂
Mac the Knife says:
Really, really interesting images and videos!
A little help with interpretation?
I’ll try some answers, Mac:
1. I take you mean the “rugged surface”? In a simple description, these “grains” is the density/temperature structure in the corona (and it seems enhanced by a sharpening filter on the image), given by the plasma and magnetic field distribution there.
2. Yes, you got that right on. The footpoints of those magnetic loops connect down in the sunspots in the photosphere. The magnetic loops are “visible” because of the plasma “trapped” in the field is emitting radiation (it is like using iron powder to see the magnetic field lines of a magnet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UrVAgzjHYY
3. Those are the so called “open field lines”. Of course, they are not “open” (remember: no magnetic monopoles): those field lines must terminate somewhere, like on another active region on the sun, or connect somewhere else in the interplanetary space. The faint smooth brightness indicates a lower density of the emitting plasma (the diverging field cannot “trap” or “concentrate” the plasma).
4. I haven’t read the paper yet, but from the original post, I think that is the interpretation of that image. We cannot see the full “rope” because it has expanded, having much less plasma inside so that no emission is detected.
5. I haven’t seen this video yet (bad connection today!), but your second interpretation is correct: there are different timescale at work there. Solar storms, flares, etc. occurs in seconds/minutes timescale, while the magnetic loops in the active regions can “live” for days (in some cases, even a couple of weeks).
I hope this brief description can help!
“these “grains” ARE the density structure[…]” of course. (Mental note: don’t post when you’re sleepy).
Nevermind other errors and typos, please. 😉
Katherine;
The “copygate” crack is unpacked thus: GMU is more concerned with doing real science than with the (idiot) attacks by the two named. It’s a compliment to the university.
______
Next question for intrepid solar scientists: what causes/sustains the ropes?
I hope you guys have not started censoring opinion on this blog ‘just because’; it certainly seems that anyone who disagrees with Leif is on a very short rope (who may do with reading the link he posted, and then thinking about the concept of psychological projection).
As for the ‘magnetic ropes’, they are Birkelund currents. The description of them by the research team is clear, if only they stop with the focus on “magnetic” and focus on the ‘current’ bit instead they will see they are describing exactly the same thing.
Alfven made it quite clear that his MHD theory was being abused with regard to frozen-in field lines: http://plasma.colorado.edu/phys7810/articles/Alfven_FieldLines_1976.pdf
Rather than being a useful concept i’d suggest that the ‘field lines’ are simply confusing issues, ie obscuring a more useful focus on the current which is producing the magnetic ropes they are seeing.
The big question in my mind is ‘what causes the Birkelund currents?’
Brian Hall says:
June 15, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Next question for intrepid solar scientists: what causes/sustains the ropes?
The ‘ropes’ [called filaments] are cool material condensed out of the hotter corona and ‘hanging’ in magnetic field line loops [those field lines that some people say don’t exist]. They are pretty stable [can last weeks] because they are confined by electric currents around them. If the magnetic field topology around the filament changes too much, e.g. by emergence of a new sunspot or by rotation/twisting of the magnetic field lines because of movements of their foot points at the surface, the filament may become unstable. The instability often shows itself by the whole filament starting to wiggle several minutes [or even hours] before the eruption.
pete says:
June 15, 2011 at 10:02 pm
As for the ‘magnetic ropes’, they are Birkelund currents.
They are not Birkeland currents in any shape or form. Perhaps you would care to describe what you think a Birkeland current is…
Re: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/15/scientists-prove-existence-of-magnetic-ropes-that-cause-solar-storms/#comment-681525
Vuckevic’s posts are often controversial and doubtful, but this time it appears he was correct.
NASA in their education page titled ‘ Magnetic Sun’ states:
Just as lines of latitude and longitude help us visualize positions on the Earth’s globe, so magnetic field lines (originally named by Michael Faraday lines of force) help visualize the distribution of magnetic forces in 3-dimensional space. ……… Magnetic field lines are then imaginary lines which mark the direction in which such a needle would point.
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sun3mag.htm
In view of the above, the permanent ban appear to be by far too severe punishment.
Having grown up learning my radio with help from little plasma bottles, I love this stuff. Has anyone yet worked out any sort of figure for the magnitude of energy flowing in these “ropes” and megaton plasma streams? Is it enough to add a tad more variability to the energy flow from the Sun to the Earth, should we pass through one of these giant streams of electromagnetic “stuff”?
fabron says:
June 16, 2011 at 12:27 am
Magnetic field lines are then imaginary lines which mark the direction in which such a needle would point.
This is true in a non-conductor like air or a vacuum, but in a plasma things are more complicated. There, the particles are bound to magnetic field lines and spiral around them. The plasma and the field are tied together and move together. In that sense the field lines have individuality and can be said to exist. It is a useful to accept this and that is really what counts. Most scientists don’t give a hoot about what ‘exists’ in ‘reality’ [and what does that actually mean?]. They care about what works and since plasma and field lines go together, if plasma exists it is useful to treat field lines as existing too.
fabron says:
June 16, 2011 at 12:27 am
Vuckevic’s posts are often controversial and doubtful, but this time it appears he was correct.
The nonsense was not about magnetic field lines existing or not, but this jewel:
“Plasma by its nature is highly layered, this to an observer may appear as a configuration of magnetic lines of force”. ‘highly layered’? ‘appear as field lines’? There are just too many such lapses in his posts, and he gets very defensive about them, which is really not of interest.
Steve C says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:00 am
Has anyone yet worked out any sort of figure for the magnitude of energy flowing in these “ropes” and megaton plasma streams? Is it enough to add a tad more variability to the energy flow from the Sun to the Earth, should we pass through one of these giant streams of electromagnetic “stuff”?
Yes it is easy to calculate the energy, and it is tiny, about a millionth of that in the ordinary sunlight that hits the Earth. And they are not really ‘electromagnetic’. The energy is mostly kinetic [and a bit of thermal] energy of the solar wind particles.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:30 am
Yes it is easy to calculate the energy, and it is tiny, about a millionth of that in the ordinary sunlight that hits the Earth. And they are not really ‘electromagnetic’. The energy is mostly kinetic [and a bit of thermal] energy of the solar wind particles.
NASA said the equivalent of a 5.5 earthquake didn’t they? Something like 5×10^16J from memory.
My previous and the current post are meant for Anthony’s attention
From NASA’s Solar Physics Glossary
http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sftheory/glossary.htm
Magnetic Field Lines
Imaginary lines that indicate the strength and direction of a magnetic field. ….. Charged particles move freely along magnetic field lines, but are inhibited by the magnetic force from moving across field lines.
tallbloke says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:53 am
NASA said the equivalent of a 5.5 earthquake didn’t they? Something like 5×10^16J from memory.
In the appendix of my NASA report from 1973 http://www.leif.org/research/Geomagnetic-Response-to-Solar-Wind.pdf I calculate the power hitting the magnetosphere [which has a cross section 100 times larger than the earth] to be 1.6E13 W. You can compare that to the solar irradiance of 1361 W/m2 * cross section of Earth = 1.7E17W or 10,000 times larger. If you compensate for the cross section difference you get 100*10,000 or a million. A large auroral substorm I calculated expended 5E14 J or a 6.7 Richter scale earthquake. Tiny…