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Last year, Boris Gudiksen defended his thesis "The coronal
heating problem" at the department of Astronomy at Stockhom University.
The thesis has now been awarded with this year's Naturvetarpris (link to
the press release in Swedish).
It has long been an observational fact that the Sun is surrounded
by a thin layer of plasma, the corona. The plasma has a temperature of
over a million degrees, to be compared with the significantly lower
temperature of 6000 degrees at the solar surface. For decades, solar
researchers have been trying to explain how the corona is heated. In
his thesis, Boris Gudiksen presents the first successful simulation
of the heating. It turns out that the Sun's magnetic field in conjuction
with motions in the solar atmosphere makes this heating possible. When
the gas in the solar photosphere - which is commonly referred to as the
surface of the Sun - moves, the magnetic fields are twisted together.
The energy thus built up can be released in the corona, giving the
very high temperature.
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