Related papers: Giant Convection Cells Found on the Sun
We have performed the first three-dimensional non-linear simulation of the turbulent convective envelope of a rotating 0.8 Msun RGB star using the ASH code. Adopting a global typical rotation rate of a tenth of the solar rate, we have…
On its journey through the Galaxy, the Sun passes through diverse regions of the interstellar medium. High-resolution spectroscopic measurements of interstellar absorption lines in spectra of nearby stars show absorption components from…
It is generally believed that sunspots are the emergent part of magnetic flux tubes in the solar interior. These tubes are created at the base of the convection zone and rise to the surface due to their magnetic buoyancy. The motion of…
Solar prominences are long-lived cool and dense plasma curtains in the hot and rarefied outer solar atmosphere or corona. The physical mechanism responsible for their formation and especially for their internal plasma circulation has been…
Photospheric vortex flows are thought to play a key role in the evolution of magnetic fields. Recent studies show that these swirling motions are ubiquitous in the solar surface convection and occur in a wide range of temporal and spatial…
Overshooting occurs in stars when convective elements penetrate into adjacent radiative zones. In the Sun, it leads to the so-called `tachocline' at the base of the outer convection zone and this region is becoming a key ingredient of the…
Compared to the Sun, the atmospheric structure and convective flow in Procyon A exhibit the following characteristics: (1) the highly superadiabatic transition layer (SAL) is located at much shallower optical depth; it is in a dynamically…
The solar activity cycle is successfully modeled by the flux transport dynamo, in which the meridional circulation of the Sun plays an important role. Most of the kinematic dynamo simulations assume a one-cell structure of the meridional…
We present a series of numerical simulations of the quiet Sun plasma threaded by magnetic fields that extend from the upper convection zone into the low corona. We discuss an efficient, simplified approximation to the physics of optically…
Surface observations indicate that the speed of the solar meridional circulation in the photosphere varies in anti-phase with the solar cycle. The current explanation for the source of this variation is that inflows into active regions…
The Venusian atmosphere is in a state of superrotation where prevailing westward winds move much faster than the planet's rotation. Venus is covered with thick clouds that extend from about 45 to 70 km altitude, but thermal radiation…
We present numerical simulations of penetrative convection and gravity wave excitation in the Sun. Gravity waves are self-consistently generated by a convective zone overlying a radiative interior. We produce power spectra for gravity waves…
In the outer envelope of the Sun and in other stars, differential rotation and meridional circulation are maintained via the redistribution of momentum and energy by convective motions. In order to properly capture such processes in a…
We study how the pattern of thermal convection and differential rotation in the interior of a giant gaseous planet is affected by the presence of a small solid core as a function of the planetary rotation rate. We show, using 2D anelastic,…
The solar convection manifests as granulation and intergranulation at the solar surface. In the photosphere, convective motions induce differential Doppler shifts to spectral lines. The observed convective blueshift varies across the solar…
The question how the outer solar atmosphere is heated from solar photospheric temperatures of about 5800K up to solar chromospheric and coronal temperatures of about 20.000K and millions of degrees respectively, remained without any…
Rapidly rotating fluids have a rotation profile which depends only on the distance from the rotation axis, in accordance with the Taylor-Proudman theorem. Although the Sun was expected to be such a body, helioseismology showed that the…
The temporal variations of the rotation rate in the solar interior are studied using frequency splittings from Global Oscillations Network Group (GONG) data obtained during the period 1995-99. We find alternating latitudinal bands of faster…
The connection between nuclear fusion in the Sun's core and solar irradiance is obscured among other things by uncertainty over the mechanism of coronal heating. Data for solar wind density and velocity, sunspot number, and EUV flux suggest…
We simulate numerically convection in a rectangular cell filled with an ideal gas rotating about an axis perpendicular to the direction of gravity. This configuration corresponds to an experiment with a convection cell placed in a rapidly…