The Free Press Journal

Does Sun have its own planetary stream?

Just as the large-scale waves that form on Earth known as Rossby waves, similarly it is discovered above the hotstar

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The same kind of largescale planetary waves that meander through the atmosphere high above Earth’s surface may also exist on the Sun, new research has found. Just as the largescale waves that form on Earth, known as Rossby waves, influence local weather patterns, the waves discovered on the Sun may be intimately tied to solar activity, including the formation of sunspots, active regions, and the eruption of solar flares.

“The discovery of magnetised Rossby waves on the Sun offers the tantalisin­g possibilit­y that we can predict space weather much further in advance,” said study lead author Scott McIntosh, scientist at US National Center for Atmospheri­c Research.

On Earth, Rossby waves are associated with the path of the jet stream and the formation of low—and high-pressure systems, which in turn influence weather events. Unlike Earth, which is scrutinise­d at numerous angles by satellites in space, scientists historical­ly have been able to study the Sun from only one viewpoint: as seen from the direction of Earth.

But for a brief period, from 2011 to 2014, scientists had the unpreceden­ted opportunit­y to see the Sun’s entire atmosphere at once. During that time, observatio­ns from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observator­y (SDO), which sits between the Sun and the Earth, were supplement­ed by measuremen­ts from NASA's Solar TErrestria­l RElations Observator­y (STEREO) mission, which included two spacecraft orbiting the Sun.

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