4096 4096 pixels on the solar photosphere by the Helioseismic and Magnetic
Imager (background image). We cross correlate wave field records of temporal length T at points on opposing quadrants (blue with blue or red with red).
From New York University: Researchers create ‘MRI’ of the sun’s interior motions
A team of scientists has created an “MRI” of the Sun’s interior plasma motions, shedding light on how it transfers heat from its deep interior to its surface. The result, which appears in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, upends our understanding of how heat is transported outwards by the Sun and challenges existing explanations of the formation of sunspots and magnetic field generation.
The Sun’s heat, generated by nuclear fusion in its core, is transported to the surface by convection in the outer third. However, our understanding of this process is largely theoretical—the Sun is opaque, so convection cannot be directly observed. As a result, theories largely rest on what we know about fluid flow and then applying them to the Sun, which is primarily composed of hydrogen, helium, and plasma.
Developing a more precise grasp of convection is vital to comprehending a range of phenomena, including the formation of sunspots, which have a lower temperature than the rest of the Sun’s surface, and the Sun’s magnetic field, which is created by its interior plasma motions.
In order to develop their “MRI” of the Sun’s plasma flows, the researchers examined high-resolution images of the Sun’s surface taken by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Using a 16-million pixel camera, HMI measures motions on the Sun’s surface caused by convection.
Once the scientists captured the precise movement waves on the Sun’s surface, they were able to calculate its unseen plasma motions. This procedure is not unlike measuring the strength and direction of an ocean’s current by monitoring the time it takes a swimmer to move across the water—currents moving against the swimmer will result in slower times while those going in the same direction will produce faster times, with stronger and weaker currents enhancing or diminishing the impact on the swimmer.
What they found significantly departed from existing theory–specifically, the speed of the Sun’s plasma motions were approximately 100 times slower than scientists had previously projected.
“Our current theoretical understanding of magnetic field generation in the Sun relies on these motions being of a certain magnitude,” explained Shravan Hanasoge, an associate research scholar in geosciences at Princeton University and a visiting scholar at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. “These convective motions are currently believed to prop up large-scale circulations in the outer third of the Sun that generate magnetic fields.”
“However, our results suggest that convective motions in the Sun are nearly 100 times smaller than these current theoretical expectations,” continued Hanasoge, also a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Plank Institute in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany. “If these motions are indeed that slow in the Sun, then the most widely accepted theory concerning the generation of solar magnetic field is broken, leaving us with no compelling theory to explain its generation of magnetic fields and the need to overhaul our understanding of the physics of the Sun’s interior.”
The study’s other co-authors were Thomas Duvall, an astrophysicist at NASA, and Katepalli Sreenivasan, University Professor in NYU’s Department of Physics and Courant Institute. Sreenivasan is also Senior Vice Provost for Science and Technology for the Global Network University at NYU and Provost of Polytechnic Institute of NYU.
===========================================================
ANOMALOUSLY WEAK SOLAR CONVECTION
Shravan M. Hanasoge y and Thomas L. Duvall, Jr. z and Katepalli R. Sreenivasan
Convection in the solar interior is thought to comprise structures on a spectrum of scales. This conclusion emerges from phenomenological studies and numerical simulations, though neither covers the proper range of dynamical parameters of solar convection. Here, we analyze observations of the wavefield in the solar photosphere using techniques of time-distance helioseismology to image flows in the solar interior. We downsample and synthesize 900 billion wave-feld observations to produce 3 billion cross-correlations, which we average and fit, measuring 5 million wave travel times. Using these travel times, we deduce the underlying flow systems and study their statistics to bound convective velocity magnitudes in the solar interior, as a function of depth and spherical-harmonic degree l. Within the wavenumber band l < 60, Convective velocities are 20-100 times weaker than current theoretical estimates. This suggests the prevalence of a different paradigm of turbulence from that predicted by existing models, prompting the question: what mechanism transports the heat ux of a solar luminosity outwards? Advection is dominated by Coriolis forces for wavenumbers l< 60, with Rossby numbers smaller than ~10-2 at r/Rθ= 0.96, suggesting that the Sun may be a much faster rotator than previously thought, and that large-scale convection may be quasi-geostrophic. The fact that iso-rotation contours in the Sun are not co-aligned with the axis of rotation suggests the presence of a latitudinal entropy gradient.
paper here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.3173.pdf
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Steven says:
July 9, 2012 at 8:32 am
“If just one of you that believe magnetic forces can be created by any other means than electrical forces, please provide the paper????”
Steven, moving elementary particles create magnetic fields, each particle has a mass and charge and each has a magnetic moment. In the scale of things, moving elementary particles in the sun do not produce an electrical current if that’s what you mean?
Mass -> Charge (spin) -> Magnetic force
Do the low order waves create the sunspot “butterfly” pattern that develops from the beginning to the peak of each solar cycle?
lancifer666 says:
July 9, 2012 at 9:40 am
Good point. But isn’t it possible that Baryon asymmetry of the early universe, which is posited by some theories to explain the disparity between surviving matter and antimatter, could also provide a mechanism by which positive and negative charged particles could have been dispersed and produced magnetic fields?
It is hard to ‘disperse’ oppositely charged particles as they attract each other. Another point, 377,000 years after the Big Bang, the temperature had fallen so much that the positive and negative charges recombined to form neutral atoms. From that point on, the Universe was no longer a plasma. This persisted some 500 million years, until the atoms were re-ionized by the first stars, and plasma was once again found in the universe [outside of stars].
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 9, 2012 at 9:38 am
…. These large-scale flows should not be called ‘convection’ per se. Convection is small-scale [and can be seen at the surface as granulation]. The issue in the research was to what extent large-scale organized flows exist.
_________________________
Thanks for the clarification. It is a different beast than ‘convection’
Granulation is also caused by plasma instabilities. All observations of the Sun have been confirmed in laboratory testing of plasma, and none of these tests confirm the standard model of nuclear fussion at it’s core. The power comes from outside, this is why the corona is millions of degrees hotter than the surface, and sunspots even cooler as you view even deeper into the Sun. The surface of the Sun experiences tufting and granulation, i.e. electric arcs. Thermodynamics states heat will migrate from the source to the coolest area, not the other way around. the deeper one peers into the Sun, the cooler the temperatures become. The further one goes from its surface up to the corona, the hotter it becomes. last I checked when I turned my heater on it was hottest at the source, to 3 ft away.
It is simple as:
Both the electron’s spin and its orbiting of the atom’s nucleus produces a magnetic field.
Hence the magnetic moment of an atom is the result of its electrons spinning.
Similarly naked nuclei spin and produce magnetic field. The Biermann Battery Effect is a spurious hypothesis.
Pamela Gray says:
July 9, 2012 at 9:51 am
Do the low order waves create the sunspot “butterfly” pattern that develops from the beginning to the peak of each solar cycle?
In a sense, but not directly. Movements of the solar material in magnetic fields left over from the previous cycle creates the next.
Steven says:
July 9, 2012 at 9:57 am
Granulation is also caused by plasma instabilities.
No, no more than the roiling of boiling water is. Granulation is just ordinary convection as you’ll see in fluids heated from below.
the deeper one peers into the Sun, the cooler the temperatures become.
At one time some people believed that the cool solar interior was inhabited…Maybe you do too?
Steven, you really should not be taken in by the E.U. nonsense. It shows how gullible you are, unless, of course you are guided by ideology [which supersedes rationality] or some such. It is a waste of WUWT bandwidth and reader patience to try to convince you otherwise, but you could go here: http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html
What would David Whitehouse say on this item ?
vukcevic says:
July 9, 2012 at 9:59 am
Similarly naked nuclei spin and produce magnetic field. The Biermann Battery Effect is a spurious hypothesis.
You are at it again. Pontificating on things you do not understand.
Okay. So far, I get that the current butterfly pattern of the appearance of sunspots is related to the previous cycle. But does the process that coils up the magnetic field lines beneath the surface that then bursts as sunspots onto the surface, ride these large scale waves?
Pamela Gray says:
July 9, 2012 at 10:23 am
But does the process that coils up the magnetic field lines beneath the surface that then bursts as sunspots onto the surface, ride these large scale waves?
If those large-scale waves are shown to be absent of slow, perhaps they have little to do with the cycle. This is a point argued between people supporting the deep dynamo and those who prefer the shallow dynamo. In my view, the fact that the strength of the polar fields has turned out [so far] to be a good predictor of the next cycle argues against a deep dynamo, as there is simply not enough time for the circulation to work. One of things SDO will do for us is to help resolve this issue.
Vukcevic: Both the electron’s spin and its orbiting of the atom’s nucleus produces a magnetic field.
Dr. Svalgaard : You are at it again. Pontificating on things you do not understand.
Wikipedia: A spin magnetic moment is induced by all charged particles. The electron is an example of one such charged particle. A spin magnetic moment is created because a particle has physical properties known as spin and electric charge….
Paul Dirac provided a rigorous theoretical foundation for the concept with his relativistic equation of motion for the wavefunction of the electron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_magnetic_moment
Vukcevic: I have no further comment
vukcevic says:
July 9, 2012 at 10:42 am
Paul Dirac provided a rigorous theoretical foundation for the concept with his relativistic equation of motion for the wavefunction of the electron.
Very true, but has no bearing on where the initial larger-scale magnetic field in the Universe came from. The dynamo process that amplifies the initial seed-field does not work on nuclear/electron spins.
Vukcevic: I have no further comment
Let us see if you are truthful about that.
Lief: One might surmise you are the gullible one. The very idea that an ionized gas (plasma) is nuetral defies the very meaning of the term. If it was neutral it would not be a plasma, but would instead be a neutral gas. Contradictory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)
One might also wonder what you define as electricity, since every definition of it contradicts the one before.
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/miscon/whatis.html
Shall we discuss the aurora, the filiments connecting Sun and Earth, Jupiter and it’s moons or galaxy to galaxy?
Plasma produces sychroton radiation (x-rays, gamma rays) when electrons spiral in the magnetic fields. All these phenomenon have been reproduced in the laboratory with plasma, an ionized gas, not an electrally neutral gas, i.e. non-plasma.
It is your misconceptions and others that allow the current cosmology to keep science from preceeding forward.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2012/06/10/getting-sloshed-2/
An example on how a poorly written abstract can be misleading and confusing:
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2012 07:05:27 -0700
From: Leif Svalgaard <lsvalgaard@gmail.com
To: Tom Duvall <duvall@sun.stanford.edu
Tom, in the paper you et al. write [in the abstract]:
"suggesting that the Sun may be a much faster rotator than previously thought"
I find no reference to that in the text, and I find the statement puzzling. 'Much faster rotator' means what? Literally read, it might mean that the sun rotates much faster than thought. How much is 'much'? does the sun rotate twice as fast as 25 days or ten times as fast or what.
Tom Duvall duvall@sun.stanford.edu
to: lsvalgaard@gmail.com
date: Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 10:52 AM
Leif,
My mistake. The statement should have been worded differently. See Shravan's answer below.
Tom
Tom Duvall <duvall@sun.stanford.edu
> wrote:
Shravan,
Do you have an answer to the question? I would enjoy seeing it also.
Tom
Date:Mon, 9 Jul 2012 13:18:54 -0400
From:Shravan Hanasoge
To: Tom Duvall
Certainly – I now realize it’s a bit of a confusing statement because it’s a slightly technical concept. The “rapidity” of solar rotation is defined in our context through the Rossby number: the ratio of convective velocity to the speed of rotation. It is largely thought that the Sun, in the context of Rossby number, is a slow rotator, i.e. that Coriolis forces play a very weak role in influencing convective motions. (which is actually true in the case of granulation; see also Miesch 2005, living reviews).
However our results show that the convective motions are substantially weaker than previously thought, which means the Rossby number is very low and convection therefore is strongly influenced by rotation and Coriolis forces (much more so than previously thought).
In that sense, the Sun is “fast rotator”.
Shravan
Does anyone here actually know what an ionized gas is (i.e. plasma)? A gas carrying no charge is just that, a gas and may be termed nuetral. The very idea that a plasma is neutral flies in the very face of what makes it a plasma. it is a charged gas, not a neutral gas. If it was neutral it would not be a plasma. You contradict yourself at every statement. You know plasma is ionized, yet then state it is neutral. A neutral gas is not a plasma.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionization
This is why your ideas are stuck in the gravocentric world, because you insist a charged gas is neutral defying the very term of charge.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2012/06/10/getting-sloshed-2/
Open your eyes and view the true universe.
Dr Svalgaard,
If it’s not considered cheeky to ask, is it possible for you to give us a rough estimate of the impact of this paper free from press release hype?
Heliological equivalent of the UV catastrophe? Settles the hash between rival hypotheses? Or “nice to have a better estimate of that number”
Steven says:
July 9, 2012 at 11:17 am
The very idea that a plasma is neutral flies in the very face of what makes it a plasma
Just shows that YOU do not know what a plasma is. Here you can learn more about plasmas: http://www.pma.caltech.edu/Courses/ph136/yr2004/0419.1.K.pdf
The size of the region where deviations from strict neutrality can happen is called the Debye length. It is usually very small:
Gas discharge tube 0.0001 meter
Tokamak 0.0001 m
Ionosphere 0.001 m
Magnetosphere 100 m
Solar core 0.000,000,000,01 m
Solar wind 10 m
Interstellar medium 10 m
Intergalactic medium 10 km
I have no further comment on the spurious interpretations of the origins of magnetic fields, since science has resolved the matter nearly 100 years ago, theoretically and in more recent decades many of WUWT readers may have experienced benefits of the theory via the reality of the magnetic resonance scanning, based on the magnetic moment created by the spin of charged particles.
When a person is inside the powerful magnetic field of the scanner, the average magnetic moment of many protons becomes aligned with the direction of the field. A radio frequency current is briefly turned on, producing a varying electromagnetic field. This electromagnetic field has just the right frequency, known as the resonance frequency, to be absorbed and flip the spin of the protons in the magnetic field. After the electromagnetic field is turned off, the spins of the protons return to thermodynamic equilibrium and the bulk magnetization becomes re-aligned with the static magnetic field.
Paul Lauterbur of the University of Illinois and Sir Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham were awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their “discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging
Electrons and protons were spinning and creating magnetic fields from the moment the Universe was created and will do that till its end.
No further comment on any spurious non-factual alternatives.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 9, 2012 at 6:45 am
Gene says:
July 9, 2012 at 2:42 am
Anthony, our understanding of the heat being generated by nuclear fusion in the core is also theoretical, and entirely so.
No. We observe just the neutrino flux we should based on fusion in the core. So there is direct observational evidence.
————
Not forgetting that it makes things warm, and shines brightly – just the sort of things you’d expect from nuclear fusion and a misapplication of propositional logic.
Not only does that observation falsify mainstream field generation theories, it falsifies their claims about heavy elements like Iron and Nickel staying mixed with light elements like hydrogen and helium. It also pretty much undermines every mainstream energy release mechanism propsed by the mainstream to explain high coronal temperature.
As Birkeland predicted over 100 years ago from experiments in the lab, the sun is electric and its a cathode with respect to interstellar space.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50A11FB385F13738DDDAA0A94DA405B838DF1D3
Steven says:
July 9, 2012 at 11:07 am
The very idea that an ionized gas (plasma) is neutral defies the very meaning of the term.
You are confusing ionized gas and neutral gas. Ionized gases are neutral, otherwise the short them selves out very quickly. That they are ionized means simply that there are lot of easily moved electrons. These very quickly move to neutralize any charge separation, but study the link I gave you. now, I have no illusion that you’ll learn, but one can always hope.
vukcevic says:
July 9, 2012 at 11:44 am
I have no further comment on the spurious interpretations of the origins of magnetic fields
Again you are displaying ignorance. The question is not about the origin of magnetic moments of atomic particles, but about the origin of the large-scale initial magnetic fields in the Universe.
Exactly vukcevic. You have electrons spinning at near the speed of light in the magnetic field of the atom, and what happens when you spin things in magnetic fields, anyone? Why do you think all atomic structures have charge, because the EM force is the primary source of energy in the universe. It is what makes your thoughts possible, what makes you able to walk and talk. Without electrical signals your muscles would be useless and you would posess no thoughts. We should all be glad that the universe doesn’t conform to the theory of neutrality, or we would not be here to discuss this. Day by day, data set by data set, the EU is confirmed as current cosmology slides into its death throes. The problem is no one actually knows what electricity is.
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/miscon/whatis.html
michaelozanne says:
July 9, 2012 at 11:26 am
is it possible for you to give us a rough estimate of the impact of this paper free from press release hype? Heliological equivalent of the UV catastrophe? Settles the hash between rival hypotheses? Or “nice to have a better estimate of that number”
The last one is closer to the mark, with a bit of the penultimate too. The issue has to do with creation and maintenance of the turbulence thought to be important for generation of solar activity, especially at what length scale the turbulence is organized.
Luther Bl’t says:
July 9, 2012 at 11:46 am
“No. We observe just the neutrino flux we should based on fusion in the core. So there is direct observational evidence.”
Not forgetting that it makes things warm, and shines brightly – just the sort of things you’d expect from nuclear fusion and a misapplication of propositional logic.
propositional logic [I wonder if you know what it is…] has nothing to do with this.