NASA Reveals Some of Sun's Secrets

With a new detailed image of our closest star, NASA is revealing some the Sun's secrets with surprising information about its atmosphere.

These observations, reported in five papers in the journal Science, will help scientists determine how massive amounts of energy generated by the Sun are transported from its surface to its outer atmosphere.

NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectograph (IRIS) took the comprehensive photos, which studies the mysterious interface region that sits between the Sun's surface (photosphere) and the outer atmosphere (corona).

"IRIS's findings tell us the interface region of the Sun is far more complicated than we imagined," Dr. Hui Tian of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, who helped author the research, told ABC Science.

Some of the more noteworthy findings identified heat pockets of 200,000 degrees Fahrenheit that exist in the solar atmosphere, which scientists refer to as "heat bombs." These pockets of plasma were embedded in the surrounding, relatively cool 6000-degree photosphere.

"The temperature contrast creates 'bombs of hot plasma,' which had never been seen before, and which were totally unexpected," Tian explained.

Scientists believe these surprising pockets can offer deeper understanding of the heating mechanisms throughout the solar atmosphere.

Another finding uncovered evidence of twisting, tornado-like structures in the Sun's chromosphere, moving at speeds as fast as 12 miles per second.

"These rotation motions can transfer mass and energy from the lower to the higher layers of atmosphere, none had never been seen before, and that's very exciting," Tian added.

Researchers were also surprised by the discovery of high-speed jets that may contribute to solar wind. These fountains of plasma shoot out of coronal holes, areas of less dense material in the solar atmosphere.

In addition, the authors studied the creation of long loops of solar material in the Suns active regions, which accelerate particles to very high energies and could be the key to understanding how the solar atmosphere is energized.

IRIS, which was launched last year, will continue observing the Sun for the next decade.

"We are only just starting to analyse the IRIS data," Tian concluded. "In the next few years more exciting things will be discovered."