Solar Shooting Stars : Discovery
Astronomers have made a stunning discovery of meteor-like streaks falling on the surface of the Sun.
- Solar shooting stars are massive clumps of plasma that plummet to the Sun’s surface at incredible speeds.
- These looks like a massive rain of fireballs that play a key role in heating up the corona which is the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere.
- The researchers observed these solar shooting stars using the Solar Orbiter spacecraft of the European Space Agency.
- This is the first time such impacts have been spotted.
- These observations were made from a close distance of just 30 million miles from the sun.
- The Coronal rain which is plasma firework displays consisting of gas with temperatures exceeding two million degrees Fahrenheit.
- Instead of water, coronal rains form when localised temperature drops, causing solar plasma to condense into dense lumps.
- These lumps then fall to the cooler surface of the Sun, known as the photosphere, as fiery rain at speeds of up to 220,000 miles per hour.
