This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A team of researchers has produced the first global, three-dimensional estimates of the sun's magnetic field, including the area beyond the sun's visible edge. This marks a step toward more accurate models of solar activity—and ultimately, better predictions of solar magnetic eruptions, which are the root cause of extreme space weather that can impact critical infrastructure technologies on Earth.
Scientists have been able to observe the structure of the sun's upper atmosphere—called the corona—for decades but haven't been able to measure the full magnetic field responsible for shaping it. Now, a new study demonstrates a way to fill that gap by applying a new method to existing observations from the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (MLSO), which is operated by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR).
The method of reconstructing the sun's elusive 3D coronal magnetic field by extracting previously inaccessible information from these observations is published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. "By applying a novel method to observations from the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, we produced the first determinations of the coronal magnetic field's strength and 3D direction across the regions where MLSO observations are available," said Daniela Lacatus, an NSF NCAR researcher and one of the paper's co-authors. "These results help to overcome a major bottleneck in measuring the coronal magnetic field that has persisted for decades." The study was conducted by researchers from NSF NCAR, the U.S.
National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO), and Southwest Research Institute. To create the 3D maps of the coronal magnetic field, the research team built on two previous research endeavors: a study that produced the first 2D global maps of the coronal magnetic field, using data from an instrument called the Upgraded Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (UCoMP) located at MLSO, and a novel technique known as the IQUD inversion. The IQUD inversion has shown promise in both theoretical and statistical tests.
Combining the two methods, the research team focused on using data from the original Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP) on Oct. 14, 2016, and UCoMP on June 1, 2022. The result was the ability to pull out information encoded in waves traveling through the corona to reconstruct the 3D coronal magnetic field. "For the first time, we can begin to see the sun's hidden magnetic architecture in three dimensions not by building a new type of ground or space instrument, but by decoding the light and waves already coming from the sun's corona," said Alin Paraschiv, an NSF NSO researcher and the study's lead author.
"For a star whose magnetic activity influences everything from the solar wind to the auroras dancing across Earth's skies, being able to measure more of that hidden architecture could transform our understanding of how the sun works." While the study represents the transition from a theoretically demonstrated technique to an observationally demonstrated capability, the initial magnetic-field maps have limitations. Additional development and validation will be necessary before the approach can become a routine capability. To encourage that progress, the team has made its analysis software and data sets openly available, allowing other scientists to test, refine, and extend the method.
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