An artistic impression of the high-frequency retrograde (HFR) vorticity waves. These waves appear as swirling movements near the equator of the Sun. The rotation in the north is always anti-symmetric to the rotation in the southern hemisphere. These mysterious waves relocate the opposite instructions to the suns rotation, which is to the right, 3 times much faster then what is allowed by hydrodynamics alone. Credit: NYU Abu Dhabi
Researchers from NYU Abu Dhabis (NYUAD) Center for Space Science have actually discovered a brand-new set of waves in the Sun that, unexpectedly, appear to travel much faster than anticipated by theory.
In the research study, Discovery of high-frequency-retrograde vorticity waves in the Sun, released in the journal Nature Astronomy, the researchers– led by Research Associate Chris S. Hanson– detailed how they analyzed 25 years of space and ground-based information to spot these waves. The high-frequency retrograde (HFR) waves– which move in the opposite direction of the Suns rotation– appear as a pattern of vortices (swirling motions) on the surface of the Sun and move at three times the speed developed by existing theory.
The interior of the Sun and stars can not be imaged by traditional astronomy (e.g. optical, x-ray etc.), and scientists rely on analyzing the surface signatures of a range of waves to image the interiors. These brand-new HFR waves might yet be an essential puzzle piece in our understanding of stars.
Complex interactions in between other well understood waves and magnetism, convection, or gravity might drive the HFR waves at this speed. “If the HFR waves might be attributed to any of these three procedures, then the finding would have addressed some open concerns we still have about the Sun,” stated Hanson. “However, these new ages dont appear to be an outcome of these procedures, and thats exciting since it results in an entire new set of concerns.”
This research study was conducted within NYUADs Center for Space Science in cooperation with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and New York University, using NYUAD and TIFRs computational resources. By studying the Suns interior characteristics– through the usage of waves– researchers can better value the Suns potential influence on the Earth and other planets in our solar system.
” The extremely existence of HFR modes and their origin is a real mystery and might mention amazing physics at play,” stated Shravan Hanasoge, a co-author of the paper. “It has the possible to shed insight on the otherwise unobservable interior of the Sun.”
Reference: “Discovery of high-frequency-retrograde vorticity waves in the Sun” 24 March 2022, Nature Astronomy.DOI: 10.1038/ s41550-022-01632-z.
These strange waves move in the opposite direction to the suns rotation, which is to the right, three times much faster then what is permitted by hydrodynamics alone. Complex interactions in between other well known waves and magnetism, convection, or gravity might drive the HFR waves at this speed. “If the HFR waves might be associated to any of these 3 processes, then the finding would have addressed some open concerns we still have about the Sun,” stated Hanson.