Scientists have discovered a never-before-seen class of waves in the Sun that move in the opposite direction of its rotation and travel so fast that they defy explanation.
The “still undetermined nature of these waves promises new physics and a new view of solar dynamics,” reports a new study.
How little do we know regarding our Sun?
There’s still a lot we don’t know regarding the Sun. While missions like NASA’s Parker Solar Probe help shed light on the star’s behaviors, scientists continue to uncover some pretty baffling new things.
In fact, researchers are currently baffled by a new type of wave discovered in the Royal Star. New waves on the Sun have never been observed before.
The waves were spotted by chance as researchers combed through decades of solar observations.
The team was trying to answer a whole different question regarding the Sun when they noticed swirling patterns on its surface caused by these “high-frequency retrograde (HFR) waves,” according to a study published Thursday in Nature Astronomy.
We were not intentionally looking for these waves. One of the greatest mysteries of the Sun is the ‘convective enigma’ where theory suggests, but observations cannot find, the existence of large convective cells’, also called ‘giant cells’.
So we were looking in the data for the signatures of these cells and that’s where we discovered the HFR waves. Initially, we thought it was actually “giant cells”, but later ruled that out (as noted in the article).
Chris Hanson, an investor from New York University Abu Dhabi who led the study, said.
Scientists have discovered that mysterious and inexplicably fast waves come out of the Sun. The wave is moving three times faster than previously thought, according to new research.
According to the study, scientists have attempted to understand HFR waves as enhanced versions of Rossby-Haurwitz waves, given the great similarity of these two phenomena.
The team considered the possibility that the waves were overloaded by interactions with the Sun’s intense forces – such as its magnetic fields, gravity and compressibility – but ultimately those explanations failed.
Each of these possibilities would bring new knowledge on the physics of the Sun’s interior; however, we contend that all of these scenarios are unlikely.
Clearly, there are missing or poorly constrained ingredients in standard models of the Sun, and determining the mechanism responsible for HFR modes will deepen our understanding of the interiors of the Sun and stars.
said Hanson and his colleagues in the study.
Knowing this riddle will help you get to know other stars better
Now that these mysterious waves have been discovered, researchers plan to continue probing their possible origins.
They will use complex models of the enigmatic interior of the Sun, which cannot be observed directly with conventional telescopes.
Solving this solar puzzle can clarify a number of open questions regarding the structure, rotation and physics of the Sun – and, by extension, other stars.
If we understand why and how these waves are created, we can try to detect them in other stars. This, in turn, will lead to a new view of stellar structures.
Referred Hanson.
