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Solar “tadpoles” entice
researchers
Posted March 2, 2005
Courtesy Warwick University, U.K.
and World Science Staff
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Physicists at the University of
Warwick, U.K. say they have gained insight into mysterious giant dark “tadpoles” that appear to swim towards the Sun during solar flares,
enormous energy releases in the Sun’s atmosphere.
The tadpoles are colossal structures with dark heads and wiggly tails that seem to swim sunwards against tides of hot matter being thrown away from the Sun during flares.
They have puzzled astrophysicists for several years, as they are unlike other phenomena
seen on the Sun.
University of Warwick researchers Valery Nakariakov and Erwin Verwichte analysed observations obtained with NASA’s “Transition Region And Coronal Explorer” (TRACE) space mission and
proposed that the wiggles of the tadpoles’ tails are huge waves similar to the flying of flags in the wind.
But these solar wiggles are several times larger than the Earth. The scientists think that the waves are produced by a peculiar physical mechanism known as “negative energy
waves,” when waves suck energy from the material they spread through.
The researchers concluded that the tadpoles themselves are not material features, but optical
illusions. Solar matter is not falling down but is continuously thrown upwards. The apparently descending tadpole head marks the falling start point of the matter’s upward acceleration.
The research was published last month in the scientific journal Astronomy and
Astrophysics.
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