This is what the sun looked like on 13 August 2012 for the SDO.
NASA Video Screenshot by Amanda Kooser / CNET
You have heard of earthquakes, and even marsquakes. Our sun also likes to tackle the dazzling action with solar earthquakes. NASA research reveals more about these events and their mysterious origins.
These earthquake-like events release acoustic energy in the form of waves rippling along the solar surface, like waves on a lake, in the minutes following a solar flare – an eruption of light, energy and matter seen in the outer atmosphere of the sun, ‘NASA said in a statement Monday.
Scientists originally thought that solar earthquakes are powered by forces in the sun’s outer atmosphere, but by NASA Sound Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a sun-watching spacecraft, came up with some striking data when it witnessed the activity of a solar earthquake “with extraordinarily sharp wrinkles emanating from a moderately strong sunshine” in 2011.
This earthquake film shows the region of a solar earthquake on July 30, 2011 on the left and the ripples of the earthquake on the right, 42 minutes after the accompanying sunburn occurred.
NASA / SDO
SDO’s Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager instrument was able to detect the waves of the solar earthquake up to 1,130 kilometers below the solar surface. The discovery turned ideas of origin of the earthquake upside down.
A team of researchers published a study on the earthquake in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in late 2020. ‘ The scientists still have not identified exactly what mechanism actually causes solar earthquakes, although the results give the idea that their origin is probably hiding below the surface, ‘NASA said.
Researchers hope to gather more data on solar earthquakes to see if others have a similarly deep story as the 2011 event.
The sun has been a major focus of NASA and other agencies over the past few years. We saw unprecedented views of our host and the Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter spacecraft sent back new data as we try to understand the workings of the sun and how it affects our solar system and the earth.