Scientists Create Lab-Grown Solar Flares

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) are starting to unpack the mechanics behind the generation of solar coronal loops, otherwise known as solar flares.

A recent article posted to the Caltech website details the work of Paul Bellan, a professor of applied physics at the school, and his colleagues. To simulate natural solar flares in the laboratory, Bellan built a vacuum chamber with twin electrodes inside. Then, Bellan and the team charged a capacitor with a massive amount of energy before discharging it through the electrodes to create a miniature solar corona loop.

The resulting loops are small, only about 20 centimeters in length and 1 centimeter in diameter. But the lab-produced loops are structurally identical to naturally generated solar flares.

Interestingly, the resulting loops do not appear to be a single structure but an assemblage of braided strands similar to a heavy-duty rope, which breaks apart strand by strand under pressure and generate the energetic particles and x-ray bursts associated with solar flares.

Read the Caltech article on lab-grown solar flares.

A more technical rendering of the Caltech team’s research can be found in the article, “Generation of laboratory nanoflares from multiple braided plasma loops,” published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Related Terms:

• Term: Capacitor