Laboratory experiments were carried out at research collaborators Azim Premji University.
Solar jet streams and their nature has baffled astronomers, physicists since they were known. Taking a step forward to knowing the, scientists from India and the UK have deciphered the physics behind the solar plasma jets through computer simulations and lab experiments. The study led by researchers at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru performed laboratory experiments and observed how paint placed over bass audio speakers ejected jets when a certain sound’s amplitude and frequency is surpassed.
Piyali Chatterjee, IIA scientist and co-author of the latest study published in the journal Nature Physics in the study said that to their surprise, the underlying physics of paint jets was found to be analogous to that of solar plasma jets.
Laboratory experiments were carried out at research collaborators Azim Premji University.
What are solar jets?
Solar Plasma jets are powerful plasma streams that the Sun’s chromosphere (atmospheric layer above the Sun’s visible surface) constantly eject. These jet streams are influenced by the Sun’s gravity, 20 times that of Earth and constantly rise and fall back. Some jets are so energetic that they propel into the solar corona and beyond.
Chatterjee finds the four ingredients that favour solar plasma jets are gravity, its fluid nature, strong quasi periodic triggers to eject plasma and Sun’s powerful magnetic field.
The Sun’s surface is constantly in the state of convection and heat, energy is transferred to its outer surface from its dense core. Plasma is ejected from the sun’s surface as jet streams through periodic kicks of convection.