29 March 2024 - Mission Day: 10346 - DOY: 089
Pick of The Week
 
 

Darker Polar Region (February 10, 2006)


Hi-res TIF image (3.0M)

Movies
MPEG: Large (3.4M), Small(1.1M)
Quicktime: Large (1.5M), Small (370K)

The most striking feature of the Sun this week is the dark area at the southern polar region (seen here on Feb. 5, 2006) when viewed in ultraviolet light. Since coronal holes are 'open' magnetically, strong solar wind gusts can escape from them and carry gas from the solar atmosphere out into space. These magnetic fields in polar coronal holes must extend from one pole to the other, but they extend so far out into space that we have not been able to track them with certainty. Polar holes are most easily visible when the Sun is near its period of least activity (solar minimum) in the 11-year solar cycle. At this point, the Sun's magnetic field is simplifying into a "dipole," like the magnetic field around a bar magnet, but it won't stay that way for long. Before very long, the cycle of increasing activity will begin again as the magnetic poles begin to switch places again over the next 11 years.

Coronal holes appear darker because there is simply less ionized gas emitting the spectral line being observed, from eleven-times ionized iron in this case. The video clip shows that this polar region hole did not change much at all over the three days show, nor did it change for days before or after this clip.

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