Collaboration between researchers from the U.S., China and Japan has led to the development of a computer simulation of the sun that depicts its large and small scale processes in amazing detail. The simulation is described in their new study, and they believe that it will help scientists solve one of the biggest mysteries of solar research.
Scientists have developed numerous tools over the years in order to better understand the workings of the sun, and one of the popular tools in recent years is computer simulation. These simulations attempt to portray the sun's numerous activities, including the 11-year cycle of its magnetic field reversal.
Computer simulations of the sun have thus far focused on either large or small processes. Now, the current study reveals a simulation that attempts to merge these two processes together and give a more comprehensive picture of the sun. Ultimately, the team hopes to reveal how the sun manages to maintain its large-scale magnetic field in a steady state despite the large degree of chaos at smaller scales, a mystery in the field that has yet to be solved.
The team used math to reduce small-scale parameters that explain the sun's processes as a whole, allowing them to minimize the impact on the processes that the sun uses to generate its electromagnetic field and create of a whole new range of images.
Although the simulation has not revealed the mystery of how the sun maintains its large-scale magnetic field in the face of chaos, the team believes that their new model will help answer this question, and suggest that it lies in small-scale, low viscosity magnetic fields that still possess a high degree of strength, allowing them to maintain the large overall field.
The team also hopes to use their simulation to shed light on the 11-year cycle of the sun's magnetic field reversal. This process plays an important role in sending particles to Earth and hindering the effectiveness of satellites and electronic equipment, meaning that it could help us predict when the sun is going to throw magnetized particles in our direction in the form of a dangerous coronal mass ejection.
The findings were published in the March 25 issue of the journal Science.
