NASA NTRS1980
The physical properties of individual coronal loops in a solar active region observed in the XUV by the slitless objective grating spectroheliograph on board Skylab are investigated. Spectroheliograms of the normal active loop region McMath 12378 reveal three distinctive structural groups of loops in different temperature ranges, namely (1) small compact and smaller loops at temperatures of about 2,000,000 K observed in Fe XV and Fe XVI; (2) large Ne VII and Mg IX loops at temperatures from 500,000 to 1,000,000 K; and (3) chromospheric ribbons in He II and H alpha. The temperature of the active region is found to be uniform at about 2,000,000 K in the loops and background while loop density is found to be 3.5 x 10 to the 9th/cu cm in the loops and 2.5 x 10 to the 9th/cu cm in the surrounding background. Significant changes in the active region are observed in 24 h, although the gross temperature density structures of many loops do not show changes in 7 min. Gas pressure within the coronal loops is found to be about 40% greater than that of the background plasma. The observed loop parameters are noted to be consistent with flux-limited models of density enhancement in magnetic flux tubes and thus no esoteric heating function is required.