New clues have recently revealed that the Rosetta eruption, a dramatic, multi-staged eruption, could help researchers solve the long-lasting mystery of what's causing the powerful and unpredictable eruptions of the Sun.
According to a Phys.org report, uncovering this essential physics will enable scientists to better forecast the eruptions that lead to hazardous space weather conditions on Earth.
Such an explosion comprises components of three different solar eruption types that typically take place separately, making it the first time such an occurrence has been reported.
Having all three types of eruption together in a single event offers scientists something of a "solar Rosetta Stone", enabling them to translate what they know about every solar eruption type to understand other types and reveal an essential mechanism that could explain all solar eruption types.
The 'Missing Link'
According to a similar report, cΙnet through MSN News, the new study's lead author, Emily Mason, a solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said that the occurrence is a "missing link" where all of the aspects of the different eruption types can be seen in one neat small package.
It's driving home the point that such eruptions are caused by the same mechanism, only at different scales, she said.
Solar eruptions typically occur in one of three forms: a coronal mass ejection which, according to NASA, is a fractional eruption. Although they look different, coronal mass ejections or CMEs, as well as jets, are both explosive eruptions casting energy and particles into space.
While jets erupt as solar material in narrow columns, CMEs form huge bubbles that are expanded, pushed out, and formed by the sun's magnetic fields.
Meanwhile, partial eruptions begin to erupt from the surface although they do not conjure adequate energy to leave the sun; as a result, most of the material falls back on the surface of the Sun.
Ejection of Hot Layer of Solar Material
In the Rosetta Eruption, observed with NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in March 2016, the scientists saw the ejection of a hot layer of solar material on top of a magnetically active area on the surface of the Sun.
The ejection was large enough to be a jet, but too slender for a CME. Within 30 minutes, a second cooler layer of material on the surface began erupting from the same site, although eventually, it fell back down as a partial or fractional eruption.
Having observed an eruption with both jet and CME traits tells scientists they are likely brought by a singular mechanism.
With this new insight, scientists are able to apply to CMEs what they already know about jets. The occurrence also tells them that partial eruptions take place on a similar spectrum although they encounter some yet-unknown constraints that limit energy and do not enable them to make it off the sun.
Importance of Understanding the Mechanism Behind Rosetta Eruption
Understanding the mechanism behind such occurrences, especially CMEs, is crucial to forecasting when a huge eruption might result in disruptions on Earth.
CMEs release large clouds of high-energy charged particles as well magnetic fields streaming through a solar system that can lead to adverse space weather, particularly a storm of high-energy particles and activity that can be hazardous to astronauts, as well as technology in space and, and, in extreme conditions, utility grids on Earth.
By modeling the new Rosetta eruption, as well as similar events since discovered, the scientists are now hoping they can figure out what root mechanism causes solar eruptions and identify their characteristics.
The new Rosetta eruption is shown on nemesis maturity's YouTube video below:
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