\n What an excess of solar gamma rays looks like to the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory Collaboration, which includes researchers from Michigan State University. Credit: HAWC Collaboration \n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\nMaking history<\/h2>\n The sun gives off a lot of light spanning a range of energies, but some energies are more abundant than others.\n<\/p>\n
For example, through its nuclear reactions, the sun provides a ton of visible light\u2014that is, the light we see. This form of light carries an energy of about 1 electron volt, which is a handy unit of measure in physics.\n<\/p>\n
The gamma rays that Nisa and her colleagues observed had about 1 trillion electron volts, or 1 tera electron volt, abbreviated 1 TeV. Not only was this energy level surprising, but so was the fact that they were seeing so much of it.\n<\/p>\n
In the 1990s, scientists predicted that the sun could produce gamma rays when high-energy cosmic rays\u2014particles accelerated by a cosmic powerhouse like a black hole or supernova\u2014smash into protons in the sun. But, based on what was known about cosmic rays and the sun, the researchers also hypothesized it would be rare to see these gamma rays reach Earth.\n<\/p>\n
At the time, though, there wasn’t an instrument capable of detecting such high-energy gamma rays and there wouldn’t be for a while. The first observation of gamma rays with energies of more than a billion electron volts came from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in 2011.\n<\/p>\n
Over the next several years, the Fermi mission showed that not only could these rays be very energetic, but also that there were about seven times more of them than scientists had originally expected. And it looked like there were gamma rays left to discover at even higher energies.\n<\/p>\n
When a telescope launches into space, there’s a limit to how big and powerful its detectors can be. The Fermi telescope’s measurements of the sun’s gamma rays maxed out around 200 billion electron volts.\n<\/p>\n
Theorists led by John Beacom and Annika Peter, both professors at Ohio State University, encouraged the HAWC Collaboration to take a look.\n<\/p>\n
“They nudged us and said, “We’re not seeing a cutoff. You might be able to see something,” Nisa said.\n<\/p>\n
The HAWC Collaboration includes more than 30 institutions across North America, Europe and Asia, and a sizable portion of that is represented in the nearly 100 authors on the new paper. That includes Michigan state University graduate student Daniel Salazar-Gallegos, Professor Emeritus James Linnemann and Kirsten Tollefson, a professor of physics and astronomy and associate dean in the Graduate School at MSU.\n<\/p>\n
Now, for the first time, the team has shown that the energies of the sun’s rays extend into the TeV range, up to nearly 10 TeV, which does appear to be the maximum, Nisa said.\n<\/p>\n
Currently, the discovery creates more questions than answers. Solar scientists will now scratch their heads over how exactly these gamma rays achieve such high energies and what role the sun’s magnetic fields play in this phenomenon, Nisa said.\n<\/p>\n
When it comes to the cosmos, though, that’s part of the excitement. It tells us that there was something wrong, missing or perhaps both when it comes to how we understand our nearest and dearest star.\n<\/p>\n
“This shows that HAWC is adding to our knowledge of our galaxy at the highest energies, and it’s opening up questions about our very own sun,” Nisa said. “It’s making us see things in a different light. Literally.”<\/p>\n
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More information:<\/strong> \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA. Albert et al, Discovery of Gamma Rays from the Quiescent Sun with HAWC, Physical Review Letters<\/i> (2023). DOI: 10.1103\/PhysRevLett.131.051201<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tProvided by \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichigan State University<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCitation<\/strong>: \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tScientists discover the highest-energy light coming from the sun (2023, August 3) \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tretrieved 3 August 2023 \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfrom\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A composite image shows a photograph of the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory in Mexico observing particles, whose paths are shown as red lines, generated by high-energy gamma rays from the sun. Michigan State University researchers were part of the team that observed those particles and gamma rays. Credit: Mehr Un Nisa Sometimes, the best place …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Scientists discover the highest-energy light coming from the sun - Innovation Discoveries<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n