Mysterious ‘heartbeat’ comes from our SUN: Scientists detect a repeating pattern in a solar flare more than 5,100 miles above the massive star’s surface
Scientists have detected a mysterious ‘heartbeat’-like signal from our sun that repeats itself every 10 to 20 seconds.
The bizarre pattern was located on a C-class solar flare 5,000 kilometers above the star’s surface.
These pulses, known as quasi-periodic pulsations (QPP), have long been a mystery and a source of debate among solar physicists.
The team, led by the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), said uncovering the source of the heartbeat — the solar flare — could help scientists better understand how disastrous solar storms are unleashed.
Scientists have detected a signal emanating from Earth’s sun that repeats like a heartbeat – every 10 to 20 seconds
Co-author Sijie Yu, an astronomer associated with NJIT, said in a statement: “The discovery is unexpected.
“This beating pattern is important for understanding how energy is released and distributed in the solar atmosphere during these incredibly powerful solar explosions.”
Solar radio bursts are intense bursts of radio waves from the sun, often associated with solar flares and known to show signals with repeating patterns.
The team determined the source of the heartbeat after analyzing microwave observations of a solar flare event on July 13, 2017, captured by NJIT’s radio telescope called the Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA).
These observations showed a repeating signal pattern, which lead author Yuankun Kou, a Ph.D. student at Nanjing University (NJU) compared to a heartbeat.
The team identified a QPP signal at the base of the electrical power sheet that stretched more than 25,534 miles through the eruption’s core eruption region, where adversaries approach, break and reconnect, generating intense energy that powers the flare.
This is called magnetic reconnection and this is the first time a QPP has been found in such a location.
Even more interesting, the team discovered a second heartbeat in the torch.
“The repeating patterns are not unusual for solar radio bursts,” Kou said.
The bizarre pattern was located on a C-class solar flare 5,000 kilometers above the star’s surface (stock)
“But interestingly, there is a secondary source that we didn’t expect along the stretched flow plate that pulses in the same way as the main QPP source.”
“The signals likely originate from quasi-repetitive magnetic reconnections on the flare current plate.
“This is the first time a quasi-periodic radio signal has been detected in the reconnection area.
“This detection can help us determine which of the two sources caused the other.”
Using EOVSA’s unique microwave imaging capabilities, the team was able to measure the energy spectrum of electrons at the two radio sources during this event.
Bin Chen, associate professor of physics at NJIT and co-author of the paper, said: ‘The spectral imaging of EOVSA gave us new spatially and temporally resolved diagnostics of the flare’s non-thermal electrons. … We found that the distribution of high-energy electrons in the main QPP source varies in phase with that of the secondary QPP source in the electronic power sheet.
“This is a strong indication that the two QPP sources are closely related.”
Ultimately, according to Yu, the study’s findings shed new light on an important phenomenon underlying the reconnection process that drives these explosive events.
‘We finally pinpointed the origin of QPPs in solar flares as a result of periodic reconnection in the flare stream blade. … This study leads to a reexamination of the interpretations of previously reported QPP events and their implications for solar flares.”
