X Marks the Spot: SDO Sees Reconnection

Video source record: https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20130715_SDO_m11199_Reconnection

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Summary

Two NASA spacecraft have provided the most comprehensive movie ever of a mysterious process at the heart of all explosions on the sun: magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnection happens when magnetic field lines come together, break apart, and then exchange partners, snapping into new positions and releasing a jolt of magnetic energy. This process lies at the heart of giant explosions on the sun such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which can fling radiation and particles across the solar system. Magnetic field lines, themselves, are invisible, but the sun's charged plasma particles course along their length. Space telescopes can see that material appearing as bright lines looping and arcing through the sun’s atmosphere, and so map out the presence of magnetic field lines. Looking at a series of images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), scientists saw two bundles of field lines move toward each other, meet briefly to form what appeared to be an “X” and then shoo

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Details

• Source collection: NASA
• License: Public Domain (US Government)
• Category: Space

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1. Primary source record: https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20130715_SDO_m11199_Reconnection
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