Generation of solar spicules and subsequent atmospheric heating

Tanmoy Samanta; Hui Tian; Vasyl Yurchyshyn; Hardi Peter; Wenda Cao; Alphonse Sterling; Robertus Erdélyi; Kwangsu Ahn; Song Feng; Dominik Utz; Dipankar Banerjee; Yajie Chen

doi:10.1126/science.aaw2796

Generation of solar spicules and subsequent atmospheric heating

Science. 2019 Nov 15;366(6467):890-894. doi: 10.1126/science.aaw2796.

Authors

Tanmoy Samanta¹, Hui Tian², Vasyl Yurchyshyn³, Hardi Peter⁴, Wenda Cao³, Alphonse Sterling⁵, Robertus Erdélyi^{6

7}, Kwangsu Ahn³, Song Feng⁸, Dominik Utz⁹, Dipankar Banerjee¹⁰, Yajie Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China.
² School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China. huitian@pku.edu.cn.
³ Big Bear Solar Observatory, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 40386 North Shore Lane, Big Bear City, CA 92314-9672, USA.
⁴ Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany.
⁵ NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812, USA.
⁶ Solar Physics and Space Plasma Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sheffield, Hounsfield Road, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK.
⁷ Department of Astronomy, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary.
⁸ Faculty of Information Engineering and Automation, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
⁹ Institute for Geophysics, Astrophysics and Meteorology-Institute of Physics, University of Graz, Universitätsplatz 5, 8010 Graz, Austria.
¹⁰ Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Koramangala, Bangalore 560034, India.

PMID: 31727839
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw2796

Abstract

Spicules are rapidly evolving fine-scale jets of magnetized plasma in the solar chromosphere. It remains unclear how these prevalent jets originate from the solar surface and what role they play in heating the solar atmosphere. Using the Goode Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory, we observed spicules emerging within minutes of the appearance of opposite-polarity magnetic flux around dominant-polarity magnetic field concentrations. Data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory showed subsequent heating of the adjacent corona. The dynamic interaction of magnetic fields (likely due to magnetic reconnection) in the partially ionized lower solar atmosphere appears to generate these spicules and heat the upper solar atmosphere.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Grants and funding

P 27800/FWF_/Austrian Science Fund FWF/Austria