Data was released today from the joint ESA and NASA Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft that shows images of massive solar flares on the
surface of the sun cause powerful starquakes to ripple around its surface.
These starquakes are the aftershocks of the explosion of massive solar
flares above the suns surface. The data gives physicists new insight
into a solar mystery that may even prove to be a useful factor in studying
other stars.
The ESA says that the outer quarter of the Sun’s interior is a churning
maelstrom of hot gas and that turbulence in the region causes ripples that
crisscross around the Sun. According to the ESA, understanding how these
ripples move around the Sun has provided scientists with valuable information
on the Sun’s interior.
A class of solar oscillations known as 5-minute oscillations that have a
frequency of around 3 millihertz have been the most helpful to scientists.
These 5-minute oscillations are conventionally described as the sound you would
get from a bell sitting in the middle of the desert that is constantly being
hit by random grains of sand blown by the wind.
The SOHO data drew a different picture of the 5-minute oscillations for
researchers Christoffer Karoff and Hans Kjeldsen from the University of Aarhus
in Denmark. Karoff said, “The signal we saw was like someone occasionally
walking up to the bell and striking it, which told us that there was something
missing from our understanding of how the Sun works.”
The researchers launched a search for the reason the signal differed from
conventional though and they found a correlation between the solar flares and
the strength of the 5-minute oscillations. Karoff continues, “The strength of
the correlation was so strong that there can be no doubt about it.”
Similar phenomenon is known on Earth after large earthquakes when the Earth
reverberates with seismic waves. Now that the researchers have noted this
correlation research will begin to help determine how exactly these solar
flares cause the oscillations. Karoff says, “Now we need to monitor these stars
for hundreds of days.”