EOVSA tagged posts

A new study offers direct evidence showing where near-light speed particle acceleration occurs inside the largest explosion known in the solar system, the solar flare.

Solar flares are among the most violent explosions in our solar system, but despite their immense energy — equivalent to a hundred billion atomic bombs detonating at once — physicists still haven’t been able to answer exactly how these sudden eruptions on the Sun are able to launch particles to Earth, nearly 93 million miles away, in under an hour.

Now, in a study published June 8 in Na...

In a study published in Nature Astronomy, an international team of researchers has presented a new, detailed look inside the “central engine” of a large solar flare accompanied by a powerful eruption first captured on Sept. 10, 2017 by the Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA) — a solar radio telescope facility operated by New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT) Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (CSTR).

The new findings, based on EOVSA’s observations of the event at microwave wavelengths, offer the first measurements characterizing t...

This is a EOVSA radio intensity spectrogram of the 2017 September 10 solar flare, with frequency (vertical scale) and time (horizontal scale). Credit: New Jersey Institute of Technology’s expanded Owens Valley Solar Array

Last September, a massive new region of magnetic field erupted on the Sun’s surface next to an existing sunspot. The powerful collision of magnetic fields produced a series of potent solar flares, causing turbulent space weather conditions at Earth. These were the first flares to be captured, in their moment-by-moment progression, by New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT) recently expanded Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA).

With 13 antennas now working together, EOVSA was able to make images of the flare in multiple radio frequencies simultaneously for the first time...

Recent images captured by NJIT’s 1.6-meter New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) have revealed the emergence of small-scale magnetic fields in the lower reaches of the corona the researchers say may be linked to the onset of a main flare. Credit: NJIT

Scientists from NJIT’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research are providing some of the first detailed views of the mechanisms that may trigger solar flares, colossal releases of magnetic energy in the Sun’s corona that dispatch energized particles capable of penetrating Earth’s atmosphere within an hour and disrupting orbiting satellites and electronic communications on the ground.

Recent images captured by the university’s 1...