Scientists Just Revealed a Hidden Secret About The Sun’s Inner Core

A throwback to the Sun's very beginnings.

The sun’s inner core is escaped our eyes and it seems this Stealth has empowered the center to cover a gigantic mystery. The Inner Core of the Sun is the main engine of this star. For the first time, scientists are able to precisely measure the rotation of the sun’s inner core.

Scientists at the ESA and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) just revealed that the inner core doesn’t turn at an indistinguishable speed from the surface, instead it rotates 4 times faster.

While scientists had thought about how possible it is that the Sun’s center turn won’t keep pace with its external face. Although, there was no way to be sure until now. Many of the scientists even considered that the whole Sun turned as one, like an integrated merry-go-round.

But the latest evidence suggests data on low-frequency gravity wave that reverberating through the Sun, which turned out to be the key to capturing the core’s rotation.

Scientists Just Revealed a Hidden Secret About The Sun's Inner Core
Scientists have used data from ESA and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, to detect a type of wave called g-modes on the Sun. These g-modes reveal that the solar core is rotating about four times faster than the surface.
Credits: ESA

Astronomer Eric Fossat from the Côte d’Azur Observatory in France said, “We’ve been searching for these elusive g-waves in our Sun for over 40 years, and although earlier attempts have hinted at detection, none were definitive.”

“Finally, we have discovered how to unambiguously extract their signature.”

Until now, scientists have measured only higher-frequency waves called pressure waves. The wave passes through the upper layers of the Sun and is easily detected on the solar surface.

By contrast, g-waves fluctuate deep in the solar interior. Still, they can tell us the behavior of core.

Scientists used some 16 years’ worth of SOHO observational data. They even isolated a kind of g-wave called a g-mode, by analyzing how long it takes a sound wave to travel through the Sun and back to the surface again: a trip is known to be 4 hours, 7 minutes.

By going through the readings, they revealed a progression of balances. It showed them how g-waves were shaking the Sun’s inner core.

They found that the Sun’s center turns in full about once every week. This is almost 4 times fast like its surface and intermediate layers. And according to researchers, this is a throwback to the Sun’s very beginnings.

Everything taking into the account, this is the massive discovery for astronomers that confirms the presence of g-modes in the Sun.

One of the team, astronomer Roger Ulrich from UCLA said, “The most likely explanation is that this core rotation is left over from the period when the Sun formed, some 4.6 billion years ago.”

“It’s a surprise, and exciting to think we might have uncovered a relic of what the Sun was like when it first formed.”

Fossat said, “It is really special to see into the core of our own Sun to get a first indirect measurement of its rotation speed.”

“But, even though this decades-long search is over, a new window of solar physics now begins.”

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