#solar physics

imagine the sun.

This is a very reductive view since it's only in one specific wavelength, but it will serve to get the idea.

The sun isn't solid. It's a giant ball of plasma. It doesn't have a smooth surface. Oh, and it's spinning.

If something isn't solid and it's spinning, then not all parts of it have to spin at the same speed. We're used to that, we've all stirred stuff or seen clouds and felt wind before. (or at least one of those, I guess.) So, that plasma that is our sun spins faster at the poles than at the equator. that is also a somewhat reductive view, but it gets the point across as well so, whatever.

Plasma is not like other forms of matter. plasma is what you get when a gas is so energized that the electrons become more of a communal medium than any kind of one-hydrogen-nucleus-one-electron nonsense. It's basically electron broth, proton soup.

so the sun's electromagnetic field is a bit of a tangled mess. Earth's field is, broadly speaking, a big ol bar magnet with a few bits of localized fuckery. The sun's electromagnetic field is like.

kinda.

these tangled field lines are places where plasma creeps up and out, drawn along the field to make tangled loops in the sun's corona. the bright spots in this wavelength are sunspot regions. sunspots form in pairs at either end of those tangled field lines. sometimes these tangles get SO tangled that they bend and snap and erupt and the sun belches out a big ol burst of plasma all at once.

I have been in trauma therapy to unravel a lot of very old stuff. Some of it is from a traumatizing childhood experience (or at least, it's centered on that) and some of it is because I was an undiagnosed adhd autistic kid and some of it is because I've known I wasn't cis/het since I was about thirteen and sussed out that I'm genderqueer when I was about seventeen and also I live in the southern US.

Sometimes, that therapy looks like my therapist checking in, noticing I'm mostly stable enough, and we can carefully pull on one of the threads of underlying trauma to sort of map out some of the connections in my brain to release some of the pent up energy in those connections. (More or less. As I understand it.) Bit like detangling the field lines from one of the calmer regions of the sun.

Sometimes, though, there's a really big obvious angry snarl where something else has already yanked one of those threads loose. Then it feels a little bit more like we're trying to detangle one of those sunspot regions before it blehs plasma all over everything.

today was a bit like my therapist looked at me, had an internal "okay, there's what we're doing today" cause there was a big ol sunspot region right front and center.

Observations of the Sun from June 2, 2010 to June 1, 2020 with 425 million high-definition images taken every 0.75 seconds

It is a bit hypnotic.

A comparison of AR3053 and AR3052 between July 10 and July 5 when they rotated into view on the Eastern limb of the Sun. The active regions on both dates captured in Ca II K, H alpha and white light. 

AR3053 (centre) and AR3052 (small spot on RHS of image) in Ca II K light (363.3nm) on July 10.

AR3053 (left near E solar limb) and AR3052 (small spot(s) nearer centre of image) in Ca II K light (363.3nm) on July 5. AR3051 is just visible in top RH corner of the image.

AR3053 (centre) and AR3052 (small spot on RHS of image) in H alpha light (656.5nm) on July 10.

AR3053 (left near E solar limb) and AR3052 (small spot(s) nearer centre of image) in H alpha light (656.5nm) on July 5. AR3051 is just visible in top RH corner of the image. 

The change in 3053 is majestic while 3052 has dissipated over the course of the five days. looking forward to a few more cloud free days to follow groups across the solar disk on a daily basis!

AR3053 (centre) and AR3052 (small spot on RHS of image) in white light (solar continuum) on July 10.

AR3053 (left near E solar limb) and AR3052 (small spot(s) nearer centre of image) in white light (solar continuum) on July 5. AR3051 is just visible in top RH corner of the image. 

Images taken from a cloud free Albert Park in inner Melbourne VIC, AUS. Lunt130MT scope on an iOptron CEM70G mount and ZWO ASI174MM camera. H alpha images (656.5nm) Lunt double-stacked 130mm etalons. Ca II K images (393.3nm) using a Lunt rear mounted Ca K filter and white light using a Lunt Herschel wedge and Baader planetarium 3.0 neutral filter. Images captured using Firecapture, and processed in AutoStakkert!3, RegiStax6 and Photoshop.

On November 11th, 2019, the NASA Parker Solar Probe (PSP) successfully completed its third rotation around the Sun, in an ongoing effort to collect detailed data about the heliosphere region. The probe is the closest any spacecraft has come to the Sun, which allows the onboard instruments up-close access to its structure and inner workings. PSP is set to make 24 orbits before ending its mission, with eventual iterations moving the probe closer and closer to the Sun. Despite only being two years into its journey, PSP is already providing a great deal of valuable data.