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Solar spicule

Jet of plasma in the Sun's chromosphere

Solar spicule

Jet of plasma in the Sun's chromosphere

Spicules near the solar limb. They appear as dark "hairs" above the solar surface.

In solar physics, a spicule, also known as a fibril or mottle, is a dynamic jet of plasma in the Sun's chromosphere about 300 km in diameter. They move upwards with speeds between 15 and 110 km/s from the photosphere and last a few minutes each before falling back to the solar atmosphere. They were discovered in 1877 by Angelo Secchi, but the physical mechanism that generates them is still hotly debated.

Description

Spicules last for about 15 minutes;{{cite book

Prevalence

There are about 3,000,000 active spicules at any one time on the Sun's chromosphere. An individual spicule typically reaches 3,000–10,000 km altitude above the photosphere.

Motion

Spicules are generally found to move in a parabolic fashion, eg . This means that after their ejection from the solar surface at high speed they decelerate at a constant rate until they reach their maximum height (or length, as most are inclined to the vertical). They then descend back down towards the surface, accelerating at the same rate, until reaching their starting point with the same speed downwards as they originally had in the upward direction.

Causes

Bart De Pontieu (Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, Palo Alto, California, United States), Robert Erdélyi and Stewart James (both from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom) hypothesised in 2004 that spicules form as a result of P-mode oscillations in the Sun's surface, sound waves with a period of about five minutes that causes the Sun's surface to rise and fall at several hundred meters per second (see helioseismology). Magnetic flux tubes that are tilted away from the vertical can focus and guide the rising material up into the solar atmosphere to form a spicule. However, there is still some controversy about the issue in the solar physics community.

Notes

References

References

  1. Quantifying Spicules, Tiago M. D. Pereira, Bart De Pontieu, and Mats Carlsson, ''The Astrophysical Journal'' '''759''', #1 (October 2012), pp. 18-34, {{doi. 10.1088/0004-637X/759/1/18, {{bibcode. 2012ApJ...759...18P.
  2. (24 March 2021). "Spicules and downflows in the solar chromosphere". EDP Sciences.
  3. §1, Two Dynamical Models for Solar Spicules, Paul Lorrain and Serge Koutchmy, ''Solar Physics'' '''165''', #1 (April 1996), pp. 115–137, {{doi. 10.1007/BF00149093, {{bibcode. 1996SoPh..165..115L.
  4. (July 2004). "Solar chromospheric spicules from the leakage of photospheric oscillations and flows". Nature.
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