science.nasa.gov -
Sept. 5, 2008: Next April, for a grand total of 8 minutes, NASA astronomers are going to glimpse a secret layer of the sun.
Researchers call it "the transition region." It is a place in the sun's atmosphere, about 5000 km above the stellar surface, where magnetic fields overwhelm the pressure of matter and seize control of the sun's gases. It's where solar flares explode, where coronal mass ejections begin their journey to Earth, where the solar wind is mysteriously accelerated to a million mph.
Not far above the surface of the sun lies the "transition region" where magnetic fields seize control of solar gases. Photo credit: NASA/TRACE.
"Early next year, we're going to launch an experimental telescope that can measure vector magnetic fields in the transition region," explains Jonathan Cirtain of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Previous studies have measured these fields above and below the transition region—but never inside it. "We hope to be the first."
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