Solar Gamma Ray Insights
Gamma Ray Burst.
Gamma rays coming from the sun have been found to be much more prolific than expected, and could shed new light on the star's magnetic fields. A decade long project using NASA’s ma-ray Space Telescope has observed gamma ray activity over most of the ~11 year solar cycle, and is the most comprehensive of it's kind. Gamma rays are high-energy penetrating photons with energies above 100 keV. The highest energy gamma rays are emitted during lulls in solar activity, which the scientists attribute to largely unknown magnetic fields.
NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope
The observed gamma rays don't actually originate from internal solar activity, instead being the product of powerful cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are incredibly high-energy protons shooting through space, of unknown origin. When these protons collide with solar protons, gamma rays are produced. However, these newly produced gamma rays would never escape the sun to be seen by astronomers if not for tangled masses of magnetic fields. Astrophysicist John Beacom of Ohio State expressed surprise about the power and variance of the fields responsible for percieved gamma ray activity, adding that they were "much more weirdly shaped than we expected." When these masses are at the solar surface, they can intercept incoming cosmic rays, twisting them around and shooting gamma rays out from the sun.
T. LINDEN ET AL/PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2018
The researchers found that only during the lowest period of activity, called the solar minimum, were gamma rays produced above 100 billion electron volts (GeV). THey also found that gamma rays are emitted from different surface locations depending on the point in the cycle, despite predictions of uniform distribution. The rays came mainly from the equator during solar minimum,while clustering near the poles during solar maximum. No correlation with solar flares or sunspots with gamma ray activity has been found so far. But the rays should offer new means of studying magnetic fields in the photosphere, the uppermost layer of the sun's surface. Along with NASA's recent launch of the Parker Solar Probe to map field activity in the corona, we are in for a plethora of new information regarding our sun's magnetic activity.
From Physical Review Letters. https://journals.aps.org/prl/accepted/c907cY5eF951dd6f20b52de3ace4163dc7de117c9
Very interesting and well-writen post! Do those potential magnetic fields exert any danger to Earth?
Earth (and we on it) are protected from the cosmic rays by a number of factors, mostly by absorption in the atmosphere. By the time they get to the surface, frequencies of gamma cosmic rays are mostly only within the IR/visible light/UV spectrum. As a result, the energy input of GCRs to the atmosphere is negligible – about 10−9 of solar radiation – roughly the same as starlight. Flying 12 kilometres (39,000 ft) high, passengers and crews of jet airliners are exposed to at least 10 times the cosmic ray dose that people at sea level receive. Aircraft flying polar routes near the geomagnetic poles are at particular risk. But not until you go above the atmosphere you are exposed to a significant risk (which is a problem for future space travelers). They can also be a potential source of malfunction of electronics. Read more here and here. To be on the safe side we need to take care of our atmosphere and our planet :) ! I'm an astronomy teacher, if you like astronomy please follow!
Thanks for the reply, very informative. Oh, astronomy is taught in elementary school in Croatia? Interesting.
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I would have really enjoyed learning more about astronomy back in school at that stage - I always found that the most interesting parts of physics lessons were those that looked at the cosmos!
I guess you are right. Although I'm not sure how much a kid at that age can comprehend.
That's true actually! The basics are still incredibly fun to learn about at that age though - for instance, learning the our Sun is simply another star absolutely blew my mind when I was a wee lad!
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So let me understand, Cosmic rays are high energy protons from outside the solar system but they can collide with protons from sun. So protons from sun are always called Cosmic rays? Or the are associated to other types of rays?
One more question: when two protons collide they produce only gamma rays or other rays?? I was wondering where the protons vanish!
Thank you for this. Reading one of the comments I saw how you said that aircraft flying over the poles were quite vulnerable. Is there a way to deflect this danger, a form of armored coating that could be applied to those craft?