REM Nanoflares Responsible for Heating up of Sun’s Corona

As per scientists, nanoflares could be the main thrust behind the mysterious heating up of the sun's corona. Nanoflares are newly discovered small explosions, which erupt from the surface of the sun.

Surface temperature of the sun has been recorded to be more than 10,300 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmosphere of the sun is measured around a few million degrees Fahrenheit.

Astronomers for long were baffled about how the corona could be 300 times hotter than the surface of the star.

Keeping aside the size of nanoflares, these features can get as hot as 18 million degrees Fahrenheit, which could be driving the strange heating seen in the corona, said experts.

Jim Klimchuk, a solar astronomer from the Goddard Space Flight Center, said, "Explosions are called nanoflares because they have one-billionth the energy of regular flare. Despite tiny by solar standards, each packs wallop of 10-megaton hydrogen bomb. Millions of them are going off every second across the sun, and they heat corona".

It has been told that the Extreme Ultraviolet Normal Incidence Spectrograph (Eunis) mission, launched aboard a sounding rocket, made the discovery of nanoflares for the first time in December 2013.

Scientists associated with the mission told that the spacecraft recorded a spectrum of light coming from the sun. This revealed the presence of millions of nanoflares that erupts across the surface of our parent star.

Scientists said this data provided them with clear evidence that the newly recognized phenomenon was majorly responsible for heating up of the corona.

Astronomer had two main theories about the strange heating of the solar corona. The first was that heating was gradual, while the second idea was that dramatic events such as flares, were responsible for the phenomenon.

The final announcement about the finding was made on April 28, 2015 at the first Triennial Earth-Sun Summit (TESS), a meeting of heliophysicists held in Indianapolis, Ind.