Spicules: Jets on the Sun

From: Sam Wormley (swormley1_at_mchsi.com)
Date: 08/02/04 

Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2004 13:24:44 GMT

Spicules: Jets on the Sun

Ref: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040802.html
     http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0408/spicules_sst_big.jpg

Explanation: Imagine a pipe as wide as a state and as long as half the
Earth. Now imagine that this pipe is filled with hot gas moving 50,000
kilometers per hour. Further imagine that this pipe is not made of
metal but a transparent magnetic field. You are envisioning just one of
thousands of young spicules on the active Sun. Pictured above is
perhaps the highest resolution image yet of these enigmatic solar flux
tubes. Spicules dot the above frame of solar active region 10380 that
crossed the Sun in June, but are particularly evident as a carpet of
dark tubes on the right. Time-sequenced images have recently shown that
spicules last about five minutes, starting out as tall tubes of rapidly
rising gas but eventually fading as the gas peaks and falls back down
to the Sun. These images also indicate, for the first time, that the
ultimate cause of spicules is sound-like waves that flow over the Sun's
surface but leak into the Sun's atmosphere.

See: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040802.html
     http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0408/spicules_sst_big.jpg

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