Video: Our Sun is the star of a new simulation

NASA’s supercomputers are unraveling the causes of some of the sun’s most complex behaviors. Now, using data from a series of solar observing spacecraft observing the star at the center of our solar system, researchers are able to investigate the dynamics of the sun in an unprecedented way.

This animation shows the strength of the turbulent motion in the sun’s inner layers as material twists into the atmosphere, including a boiling pot of boiling water and a fish bubbling material to the surface or burrowing underground. Similar to a herd.

“Our simulations use a so-called realistic approach, which means that we incorporate everything we know about solar plasma to reproduce various phenomena observed on NASA space missions. ,” said Irina Kitiashvili, a scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. Silicon Valley helped lead the research.

Using modern computing power, the team was able to recreate for the first time the microstructure of subsurface layers observed at NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

“Currently, we do not have the computational power to create a realistic global model of the entire Sun due to its complexity,” Kitiashvili said. “So we create models of smaller areas and layers that can show the structure of the sun’s surface and atmosphere, such as shock waves and features just a few miles wide that are like tornadoes. This is a much finer detail than a single spacecraft can resolve.” ”

Scientists are working to better understand the Sun and what phenomena drive its activity patterns. The connections and interactions between the Sun and Earth cause seasons, ocean currents, weather, climate, radiation belts, aurora borealis, and many other phenomena. Space weather forecasting is critical to space exploration and supports spacecraft and astronauts in NASA’s Artemis program. Exploring this space environment is an essential part of understanding and mitigating astronauts’ exposure to space radiation and keeping spacecraft and equipment safe.

This year was a big one for our special planet, littered with events such as an annular solar eclipse, a total solar eclipse, and reaching solar maximum. In December 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission, which is helping researchers understand space weather at its roots, will make its closest approach to the Sun to date, making it the closest man-made object to the Sun. break the record. .

“The sun continues to surprise us,” Kitiashvili said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of fun events Taiyo will plan.”

These simulations were run over several weeks on the Pleaides supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility at NASA Ames, generating terabytes of data.