Rain from comets fell on the Sun: scientists recorded a rare phenomenon
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Astronomers noticed how comets fall on the Sun: it was like rain. They did not form long tails when falling, but immediately burned up in the atmosphere, reports Space.com with reference to reports during the National Astronomical Meeting. “If humans were extraterrestrial beings capable of living on the surface of the sun, we would be constantly rewarded with amazing views of shooting stars, but we would need to watch our heads,” said physicist Patrick Antolin from Northumbria University in London. A shooting star on the Sun is different from how we see it on Earth. Photo: Solar Orbiter When fragments of space dust, rocks or small asteroids fly over the Sun, they enter the atmosphere at high speeds, burn up and create streaks of light. In fact, clumps of plasma fall to the surface with incredible speed. This is explained by the fact that the Sun’s atmosphere – the corona – is much thinner than the Earth’s. Therefore, the stardust does not completely burn up during the fall. The research was carried out using the Solar Orbiter spacecraft of the European Space Agency. He noticed them when he passed at a distance of only 49 million kilometers from the Sun. This is even closer than the orbit of Mercury. A probe with ultra-sensitive cameras saw the gas heating up to about a million degrees and compressing under these coronal showers. The phenomenon lasted only a few minutes and was the result of falling clots. “The inner solar corona is so hot that we will never be able to study it in situ with a spacecraft. However, Solar Orbiter orbits close enough to the Sun that it can detect small phenomena occurring in the corona, such as the effects of rain on the corona. This allows us to obtain a valuable indirect probe of the coronal medium, which is crucial for understanding its composition and thermodynamics,” Antolin said. The data showed that during rain on the Sun, brief but intense illumination occurs, stellar material rises, and shock waves rise, which reheat gas in the corona. Scientists believe that this discovery brings them closer to solving why the Sun’s atmosphere is hotter than the core. The scientists added that bright tails are characteristic of falling stars on Earth. They are formed as a result of friction in the atmosphere, which heats the material of the meteorite and turns the solid substance into a gas. This process is called ablation. In the Sun, ablation does not occur because the star has strong magnetic fields in the corona that pull gas from these infalling clumps and prevent the formation of bright tails. Read also: NASA showed how the world “suffocates” with carbon dioxide. VIDEO
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