CNN Indonesia
Tuesday, 08 Aug 2023 08:44 WIB
Illustration. Experts recorded a very strong gamma-ray emission from the Sun. (NASA)
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
Research team from Michigan State UniversityUnited States of America (USA), was not amazed after recording the beam of energy Sun stronger than previously estimated.
Using highly sophisticated telescopes, the research team recorded the most high-energy light ever detected from the Sun, reaching nearly 10 trillion electron volts.
The footage is according to a study published Aug. 3 in the journal Physical Review Letters.
“The sun is more surprising than we know anything about,” said study co-author Mehr Un Nisa, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University.
“We thought we had full knowledge of this star, but that’s not the case,” he continued.
This intense light is in the form of gamma rays, which have the most energy of any wave in the electromagnetic spectrum.
Scientists found that there were much more gamma rays emanating from the sun than they had previously thought, which means that these rays are very bright.
“Gamma rays are brighter than previously thought,” said Brian Fields, an astrophysicist at the University of Illinois who was not involved in the research.
“Even though it is the closest and most familiar neighboring star to us, the Sun still holds a surprise for us,” he continued.
To measure sunlight, the researchers used the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC), a collection of 300 tanks containing 220 tons of water each.
Situated between the peaks of the two dormant Sierra Negra volcanoes in Mexico, the observatory measures energy signals from gamma rays and cosmic rays, even when their light does not reach Earth’s surface.
When gamma rays collide with air in the upper atmosphere, they explode into a fountain of subatomic particles in a rain of air, leaving trails that HAWC detects.
From 2015 to 2021, the study authors collected data from raindrops and captured the first recordings of solar gamma radiation breaking out 1 trillion electron volts of energy.
“After looking at data for six years, this excess of gamma rays appears,” said Nisa.
When they first saw it, researchers were stunned, speechless, and said, “we must have screwed it up. The sun couldn’t be this bright with this kind of energy.”
HAWC has helped scientists identify solar gamma radiation in the range 10 times more energetic than previous measurements.
However, scientists are not yet sure how these solar gamma rays reach such high energy levels or why they are in such high abundance.
Separately, Ofer Cohen, a solar physicist at the University of Massachusetts Lowell who was not involved in the study, said these observations of the Sun’s gamma rays were a new set of data that provide clues about the physics of the Sun and particles.
Thus, the Sun introduces a new problem that scientists need to solve.
“This is always good for science, because solved problems don’t move us forward,” he said as quoted from LiveScience.
(can/arh)
2023-08-08 01:44:24
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