Solar physics articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    By evolving spatially resolved distributions of thermal and non-thermal electrons in a solar flare in a large coronal volume, it is shown that nearly all electrons experienced a prominent acceleration.

    • Gregory D. Fleishman
    • , Gelu M. Nita
    •  & Dale E. Gary

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    NumPy is the primary array programming library for Python; here its fundamental concepts are reviewed and its evolution into a flexible interoperability layer between increasingly specialized computational libraries is discussed.

    • Charles R. Harris
    • , K. Jarrod Millman
    •  & Travis E. Oliphant

  • Article |

    The Parker Solar Probe mission has reached the inner heliosphere of the Sun and made measurements of energetic particle events in the near-Sun radiation environment.

    • D. J. McComas
    • , E. R. Christian
    •  & A. P. Rouillard

  • Letter |

    Measurements and modelling of a large confined eruption on the Sun show that its evolution is controlled by a multilayer magnetic cage containing a twisted flux rope, which can sometimes be ejective.

    • Tahar Amari
    • , Aurélien Canou
    •  & Fréderic Alauzet

  • Letter |

    Simulations of a solar coronal jet driven by filament ejection demonstrate that magnetic reconnection underlies the energy release, implying that a universal ‘breakout’ model explains both tiny jets and huge mass ejections from the Sun.

    • Peter F. Wyper
    • , Spiro K. Antiochos
    •  & C. Richard DeVore

  • Letter |

    The relationship between the X-ray activity and rotation of a star is a well-established proxy for the behaviour of the stellar dynamo; observations of four fully convective stars for which this relationship is similar to that of solar-type stars imply that the same dynamo mechanism is at work despite their structural differences to the Sun.

    • Nicholas J. Wright
    •  & Jeremy J. Drake

  • Letter |

    Coronal mass ejections are driven by a sudden release of magnetic energy stored in flux ropes in the Sun’s corona, but when the ambient magnetic field that runs toroidally along an unstable flux rope is strong enough to prevent the flux rope from kinking, a dynamic magnetic tension force halts the eruption.

    • Clayton E. Myers
    • , Masaaki Yamada
    •  & Edward E. DeLuca

  • Letter |

    A study of the formation of X-ray jets in solar coronal holes suggests that this process does not follow the popular ‘emerging-flux’ model, but instead results from a minifilament eruption akin to the larger-scale filament eruptions that drive larger solar flares and mass ejections.

    • Alphonse C. Sterling
    • , Ronald L. Moore
    •  & Mitzi Adams

  • Letter |

    A model of the heating of the quiet Sun, in which magnetic fields are generated by a subphotospheric fluid dynamo intrinsically connected to granulation, shows fields expanding into the chromosphere, where plasma is heated at the rate required to match observations by small-scale eruptions that release magnetic energy and drive sonic motions, while the corona is heated by the dissipation of Alfvén waves.

    • Tahar Amari
    • , Jean-François Luciani
    •  & Jean-Jacques Aly

  • News & Views |

    Observations made by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory have been used to identify signatures of a conduit through which energy could be transported from the surface of the Sun into its corona. See Letter p.505

    • Stephen J. Bradshaw

  • Letter |

    Rotating magnetic structures in the Sun can channel energy outwards from the convection zone and may explain how the energy required to heat the outer layers of the Sun reaches its upper atmosphere.

    • Sven Wedemeyer-Böhm
    • , Eamon Scullion
    •  & Robert Erdélyi

  • News & Views |

    A planetary system has been found in a startlingly tight orbit around an evolved star. The finding challenges the idea that close-in planets are destroyed as their host star evolves. See Letter p.496

    • Eliza M. R. Kempton

  • News & Views |

    Wave energy has long been proposed to be a source of the hot solar corona and fast solar wind. Direct measurements made by spacecraft have finally established that coronal waves are ubiquitous and can have the required energy. See Letter p.477

    • Peter Cargill
    •  & Ineke De Moortel

  • News |

    NASA satellite crash will hamper solar monitoring and aerosol measurements vital to improving climate models.

    • Jeff Tollefson

  • Letter |

    Direct observations over the past four centuries show that the number of sunspots observed on the Sun's surface varies periodically. After sunspot cycle 23, the Sun went into a prolonged minimum characterized by a very weak polar magnetic field and an unusually large number of days without sunspots. This study reports kinematic dynamo simulations which demonstrate that a fast meridional flow in the early half of a cycle, followed by a slower flow in the latter half, reproduces both characteristics of the minimum of sunspot cycle 23.

    • Dibyendu Nandy
    • , Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo
    •  & Petrus C. H. Martens

  • Letter |

    Asteroidal disruption, through high-velocity collisions or rotational spin-up, is believed to be the primary mechanism for the production and destruction of small asteroids. These authors report observations of P/2010 A2 — a previously unknown inner-belt asteroid with a peculiar, comet-like morphology — that reveal an approximately 120-metre-diameter nucleus with an associated tail of millimetre-sized dust particles. They conclude that it is most probably the evolving remnant of a recent asteroidal disruption in February/March 2009.

    • David Jewitt
    • , Harold Weaver
    •  & Michal Drahus

  • News & Views |

    The detection of unexpected changes in the Sun's spectral irradiance during the declining phase of the most recent solar cycle, and their implications for Earth's atmosphere, are intriguing. But they must be viewed as provisional. See Letter p.696

    • Rolando R. Garcia

  • Letter |

    Radiative forcing over an '11-year' solar cycle is thought to be in phase with related influences on climate, but recent satellite data reveal a surprising spectral component in solar variability. These authors show that these spectral variations lead to decreases in ozone below 45 km and increases above. As a consequence, radiative forcing of surface climate is out of phase with solar activity, suggesting that a major revision of our current understanding of solar forcing of climate may be required.

    • Joanna D. Haigh
    • , Ann R. Winning
    •  & Jerald W. Harder

  • News |

    Most of the Solar System's comets may have been stolen from other stars.

    • Lucas Laursen

  • Letter |

    It has been inferred that, during the Archaean eon, there must have been a high concentration of atmospheric CO2 and/or CH4, causing a greenhouse effect that would have compensated for the lower solar luminosity at the time and allowed liquid water to be stable in the hydrosphere. Here it is shown, however, that the mineralogy of Archaean sediments is inconsistent with such high concentrations of greenhouse gases. Instead it is proposed that a lower albedo on the Earth helped to moderate surface temperature.

    • Minik T. Rosing
    • , Dennis K. Bird
    •  & Christian J. Bjerrum

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