Magnetic Bright Points in the Quiet Sun

[jacmac]

This appeared as an Astronomy Picture of the Day on April 16, 2010.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100416.html

The subject is "Magnetic bright points in the Quiet Sun" by Almeida J.S., et al.

The paper is at this site: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1004.1885v1

The Bright points are found in the darker areas between the Granules on the "surface" of the sun, and seem to have very strong magnetic fields. Would anyone like to comment. It seems to be something new.

Jacmac

[nick c]

The conventional interpretation of the sun being powered by nuclear fusion at the core explains the granulation observed on the Sun as the result of convection, columns of hot gases are transported upward from the interior where they cool and fall back. But as Ralph Juergens observed, if these granules were convection cells then they should be irregular and violent. But what is observed is that they are organized and ordered. What are the photospheric granules?
In the Electric Sun model the granules are anode tufts, a phenomenon described by Irving Langmuir as result of studies of the behavior of plasmas in lab experiments.
see The Photosphere: Is It the Top or the Bottom of the Phenomenon We Call the Sun? by Ralph Juergens:
http://www.kronos-press.com/juergens/k0 ... sphere.htm

What could be the explanation for these bright spots in the channels between the granules? Perhaps there is a hint within this article by Juergens:

The anode-tuft explanation for photospheric granules leaves only the dark lanes between granules as channels through which electrons might be expelled from the Sun. Available knowledge of these regions does not rule out this possibility.

Observations of Fraunhofer lines - spectroscopic absorption features of the photosphere - strongly suggest that both neutral atoms and positive ions drift downward between granules.(36) This is generally interpreted as evidence of descending bulk-gas motion and as support for the convection theory of the photosphere. But if the motions of the positive ions were electrically induced, as by an anode (solar-body) potential lower than that of the primary plasma, the accompanying drift of neutral atoms could be laid to electric wind effects(37) - a transfer of momentum from field-accelerated ions to neutral members of the bulk medium. And electrons, of course, would be induced to ascend by the same forces that urged the positive ions downward.

The same Fraunhofer lines are much broadened in the dark spaces between granules. Conventionally this is attributed to turbulence in the medium, but to turbulence that is unaccountably more violent in these cooler regions than in the granules themselves.(38) It seems quite possible, however, that the observed line-broadening arises not from turbulence but from the emission of radiation in an electric field - the Stark effect.

highlight added

So, taking a cue from Juergens, I would speculate that these bright spots in the channels between granules are electrical discharges, a source of electrons, the visual analog of the spectroscopic observation called the Stark effect:
http://www.answers.com/topic/stark-effect

Discovered in 1913 by J. Stark, the effect is most easily studied in the spectra of hydrogen and helium, by observing the light from the cathode dark space of an electric discharge.

Nick

[jjohnson]

How does "the magnetic pressure open a window into the hotter parts below the photosphere"? How do the researchers know that these tiny bright points represent a "window" into a hotter world and not a surface phenomenon in arc-mode? Even at a cool 6000K everything is in plasma form.

What sort of a window does the magnetic pressure open, and why is it opened by "magnetic pressure"? Is it a band-pass filter, or what? How do scientists know that the area below the photosphere is hotter than the photosphere? How can so much heat turn cooler as its energy passes into and through the photosphere, and then into the chromosphere, and then magically regain its thermal energy (and much more) as you chart the rising temperature with altitude into the corona?

Why are the Bright Points (BPs in the paper) so small and "point-like" - not irregularly shaped nor smeared over a measurable area?

These are serious questions which the gravity model and convective cells like a pan of boiling water below the photosphere are hard-pressed to model. These look like tiny arc discharges to me, but I see similar speckle in images that are over-contrasted by too high a setting on the contrast or the unsharp filter. And on comets' crater rims. I don't have a good answer for what they really are showing us, but portholes into the Big Tokomak seem somewhat of a reach.

Jim

[MGmirkin]

How does "the magnetic pressure open a window into the hotter parts below the photosphere"? How do the researchers know that these tiny bright points represent a "window" into a hotter world and not a surface phenomenon in arc-mode? Even at a cool 6000K everything is in plasma form.

What sort of a window does the magnetic pressure open, and why is it opened by "magnetic pressure"? Is it a band-pass filter, or what? How do scientists know that the area below the photosphere is hotter than the photosphere? How can so much heat turn cooler as its energy passes into and through the photosphere, and then into the chromosphere, and then magically regain its thermal energy (and much more) as you chart the rising temperature with altitude into the corona?

Why are the Bright Points (BPs in the paper) so small and "point-like" - not irregularly shaped nor smeared over a measurable area?

These are serious questions which the gravity model and convective cells like a pan of boiling water below the photosphere are hard-pressed to model. These look like tiny arc discharges to me, but I see similar speckle in images that are over-contrasted by too high a setting on the contrast or the unsharp filter. And on comets' crater rims. I don't have a good answer for what they really are showing us, but portholes into the Big Tokomak seem somewhat of a reach.

Jim

To wit, the OBSERVABLE outer layers of the sun controvert the themonuclear sun, which should have the outer layers coolest and inner layers hottest. OBSERVATIONS, however, show that the opposite is true. The corona is the hottest at 1-2 million Kelvin. The chromosphere is around 20,000 Kelvin to 1 million Kelvin in the transition region just below the corona and between 6,000 and 20,000 Kelvin in the lower chromosphere. The photosphere is about 6,000 Kelvin and sunspots (supposedly windows opened through the photosphere to show the "hotter" insides) are the coolest of all, around 3,000-4,000 Kelvin. D'oh!

So much for the legendary "hot" core of a thermonuclear sun.

[junglelord]

Funny, NASA Spaceweather has the same show, different picture...

A new sunspot, AR1064, is growing in the sun's northeastern quadrant. Just hours ago, Sascha Somodji photographed the Earth-sized active region from his backyard observatory in Krefeld, Germany:
http://www.spaceweather.com/submissions ... 717936.jpg

Somodji's exceptionally-clear photo shows a network of speckles dotting the sun's surface all around the sunspot. Those are solar granules, continent-sized masses of plasma rising and falling like water boiling on a hot stove. Sunspot 1064 has to push those boiling masses aside in order to expand--something it is busy doing right now.

Meanwhile, another sunspot group (not yet numbered) is emerging near the sun's northeastern limb. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments.

Boiling water and nuclear bombs, its a frankenstein oven!
Anode tufting...vs boiling water...looks like anode tufting like my Tesla Coil powered Plasma Ball.
Does not look like the boiling water on my stove.

[jacmac]

Gentlemen,
Thanks for the above responses. It does seem that the BP's are currents of electrons as indicated by magnetic field strength higher than the background "quiet" areas of the sun. Perhaps this is another example of the electric activities of the sun self correcting. I reread the Juergens article. He was way ahead of the curve.

Can anyone recommend a good source of information on the various filters used to get solar pictures. It would help me to know a bit more about what I am seeing.

Thanks,
Jack

[Siggy_G]

As I read through the NASA APOD, "SDO: The Extreme Ultraviolet Sun"

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100423.html

... I got a quite surprised to see their terminology:

shown in false-color, the composite view covers extreme ultraviolet wavelengths and traces hot plasma at temperatures approaching 1 million kelvins.

The word "hot plasma" is then, by NASA, linked to an amusing YouTube video about the Sun being a giant ball of plasma...

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLkGSV9WDMA)

[MGmirkin]

I'd love it if SDO would start pointing at some sunspots and taking hi-def video and images.

Who knows what all "surprises" are in store?

Best,
~Michael Gmirkin

[jjohnson]

jac-mac - are you interested in knowing what filters to buy for your eyes or telescope, or about the filters used by solar scientists? For the latter, you might google or e-mail the observatories directly. They should be able to give you information like filter bandwidths and steepness of skirts, center frequencies, type of instruments, etc. Remember that the optical bandwidth that we actually can see is but a tiny part of the spectrum sampled by solar scientists.

For the former, Bader Observatory (Germany) make a shiny metallic coated solar film that they ship in sheets or rolls, which can be mounted over your telescope's objective lens (refractors) or open end so that the sunlight is filtered prior to entering the optical train. You can make eye protection with this film as well, but you HAVE to be exquisitely careful about observing the Sun with your eyes. Astronomy magazines are good sources of articles and ads for solar filters, including the glass types from HOYA and other mfgrs. Always use professional solar filters or filter material to avoid damage to equipment, and destruction of your eyesight faster than you or your eyes can react.

There are also solar telescopes for the amateur market ranging from very small ones with prices near US$500 up to larger ones for $thousands. You can use cameras with these telescopes. Sources include Lunt and Meade-Coronado.

[jacmac]

JJ, Thanks for the info. My neighbor is Phd. electrical engineer, amateur astronomer, and as you might expect quite skeptical of the EU material I have presented. He gets plasma and charge, but balks at the electric Sun and currents in the plasma ideas. He brought up the filters and the particles one sees through different ones.
So I will look into this to better understand when photos have the type of filter mentioned, and also to be better able to talk to Mr. neighbor.
I gave him the "Electric Universe". I' ll wait a while to see if he finds time to read it.
Thanks again,
Jack