Scientists will study solar eclipse to probe the Sun’s storms

Scientists will use next week’s total solar eclipse as a rare opportunity to learn more about the Sun’s stormy and unpredictable nature, mbl.is reports. When the Moon blocks the Sun on August 12, a team in Spain will study the Sun’s magnetic field, atmosphere and powerful weather, which can disrupt systems on Earth.

Solar eclipses have long been used to make scientific breakthroughs, according to an AFP report. During an eclipse observed on May 29, 1919, on the West African island of Príncipe, British astronomer Arthur Eddington confirmed Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Eddington observed how the bending of light, known as gravitational lensing, affected stars that became visible while the Sun’s light was blocked.

More than a century later, scientists will observe a total solar eclipse lasting one minute and 40 seconds across a large area of northern Spain.

“Our work aims to understand the physical processes underlying the Sun’s activity,” Allan Sacha Brun, an astrophysicist at the French Atomic Energy Commission, told AFP.

Researchers work daily on models designed to explain the Sun’s activity. These models allow them to place the Sun in the context of its evolutionary timeline, from birth to death, Brun said.

“We are incredibly lucky”

The Sun constantly releases material and charged particles, and sometimes unleashes massive solar storms that send huge explosions of plasma and other material into space.

When this material hits Earth’s magnetic field, it can disable satellites, threaten spacecraft and create colourful northern and southern lights.

These phenomena follow a regular cycle that peaks every 11 years, Brun said. In 2024, the Sun reached the peak of its 25th cycle.

Next week, scientists from the French Atomic Energy Commission will focus on the Sun’s corona, the outermost layer of its atmosphere.

“We are incredibly lucky; the Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, but it is also 400 times closer to us,” Brun said.

This extremely rare coincidence allows the Moon to block the Sun’s light while still enabling scientists to see what is happening in its atmosphere.

The solar corona extends 10 million kilometres outward. It is one million times fainter than the Sun’s surface, known as the photosphere, but can reach temperatures of up to two million degrees Celsius.

Under normal conditions, scientists study the Sun’s atmosphere using satellites equipped with coronagraphs, instruments that block out the photosphere, Brun explained.

Total eclipses can also give researchers a rare view of the chromosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between the corona and the Sun’s surface.

Boost for space research

Scientists at the European Space Agency will analyse next week’s eclipse in the hope of learning more about the solar wind.

“Why do solar storms spread in this way? What is their structure, and can we develop models that allow us to predict them?” asked Carole Mundell, the agency’s science director.

The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft, launched in 2020, has been collecting data on the Sun’s atmosphere.