Deep Radio Images of Sun Suggest Our Star is Hiding a Secret

The Sun could be hiding a deep secret, according to a new study from an international team of astronomers and astrophysicists at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), in Pune, India. Researchers studying space weather utilized the new Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Australia, obtaining the deepest radio images ever taken of our local star.

Coronal mass ejections (CME’s) emanating from the Sun have been known to play havoc with electrical systems, and a powerful event of this sort, striking Earth, could wipe out technological civilization, sending our species back to the 18th century.

An artist’s conception of a major CME being released from the Sun, carrying massive electromagnetic waves in its journey through space. Image credit: NASA

“The Sun is a surprisingly challenging radio source to study. Its emission can change within a second and can be very different even across nearby frequencies. In addition, the radiation due to the magnetic fields is so weak that it is like looking for the feeble light from a candle in the beam of a powerful headlight. On top of this, seeing coronal emission at radio frequencies is a bit like looking through a frosted glass, which distorts and blurs the original image,” Dr. Divya Oberoi of NCRA explains.

This is Where All the Trouble Starts

The source of energy for these massive explosions are magnetic fields in the atmosphere of the Sun, known as the corona…