The University of Central Lancashire in collaboration with Nasa, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and other partners have captured the highest resolution images ever achieved of the Sun's outer atmosphere (corona).
Nasa's High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, was launched to the edge of space on July 11 2012, from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, USA.
For several decades scientists have sought to understand why the outer parts of the solar atmosphere are on average about two million degrees Kelvin, about 400 times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
For the first time, Hi-C's image sequences show the twisting up or braiding of the magnetic field that is threaded through the outer atmosphere a clear signal that energy is being added into the corona which may then be released violently, heating the electrified gases to well over 2 million degrees.
The images were taken in the extreme ultraviolet part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This higher-energy wavelength of light is the best for viewing the hot solar corona.
The corona is widely believed to be the origin of energetic events called flares. The clarity of these new images will help scientists better understand the driving force for these eruptions and help predict with greater accuracy when violent solar eruptions might take place which could threaten Earth’s own space environment.
University of Central Lancashire played integral part in developing the Hi-C camera.
Dr Robert Walsh, the University Director of Research, said: "For the first time we can see the reconnection and unravelling of the braids within the Sun’s outer atmosphere and confirms our theory that this is one of the key processes responsible for the heating of the Sun."