Unexplained Sun Anomaly Solved Thanks to Swedish Telescope

Thanks to extremely detailed images of the sun taken by [Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope] SST and NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) satellite, British and American scientists recently found the answer to why the sun frequently throws tounges of hot gas, known as "spicules", out into its atmosphere. The phenomena has been known since late 1800s, but was until now unexplained.

The spicules are supposedly caused by soundwaves running through the sun and the reaction can be compared to waves on a sea of water.

Read about it and see an example of the images on astronomy.com.

Cool

Kind of like solar indigestion.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Cool

Kind of like solar indigestion.

More like solar burps.

Soundwaves is a strange expressions. It's just chockwaves really, but do the chockwaves travle in the sun athmosphere (and are therefore called soundwaves) or is it traveling in the suns mass?

Whatever, just some personal reflecting...

Originally posted by Raabjorn
Soundwaves is a strange expressions. It's just chockwaves really, but do the chockwaves travle in the sun athmosphere (and are therefore called soundwaves) or is it traveling in the suns mass?

Whatever, just some personal reflecting...

From what I understand, the soundwaves travel through the sun mass. The sun is actually a huge sphere of hot gas held together by its own gravity. The gas is in constant motion which causes the soundwaves travelling through the sun at the speed of light; the sun vibrates.

congratulations for the topic, it is (at least for me) very interesting to read about that, i never had red nothing about it before. thx for sharing.

cya