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Results for “solar coronal holes”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1994

Global evolution of interplanetary sector structure, coronal holes, and solar wind streams during 1976-1993: Stackplot displays based on solar magnetic observations

We use potential field calculations and solar magnetic observations during 1976 to 1993 to infer the evolution of interplanetary sector structure, coronal holes, and solar wind streams at heliographic latitudes ranging from 80 deg S to 80 deg N. The results are presented in the form of stackplots, which show long-lived patterns that rotate quasi-rigidly at rates determined by the photospheric distribution of nonaxisymmetric magnetic flux. The fastest wind streams and their coronal hole sources form slowly rotating patterns near the poles just after sunspot maximum but migrate to lower latitudes and tend to rotate at near-equatorial rates as sunspot activity declines.

Wang, Y. M.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Genesis Solar Wind Interstream, Coronal Hole and Coronal Mass Ejection Samples: Update on Availability and Condition

Recent refinement of analysis of ACE/SWICS data (Advanced Composition Explorer/Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer) and of onboard data for Genesis Discovery Mission of 3 regimes of solar wind at Earth-Sun L1 make it an appropriate time to update the availability and condition of Genesis samples specifically collected in these three regimes and currently curated at Johnson Space Center. ACE/SWICS spacecraft data indicate that solar wind flow types emanating from the interstream regions, from coronal holes and from coronal mass ejections are elementally and isotopically fractionated in different ways from the solar photosphere, and that correction of solar wind values to photosphere values is non-trivial. Returned Genesis solar wind samples captured very different kinds of information about these three regimes than spacecraft data. Samples were collected from 11/30/2001 to 4/1/2004 on the declining phase of solar cycle 23. Meshik, et al is an example of precision attainable. Earlier high precision laboratory analyses of noble gases collected in the interstream, coronal hole and coronal mass ejection regimes speak to degree of fractionation in solar wind formation and models that laboratory data support. The current availability and condition of samples captured on collector plates during interstream slow solar wind, coronal hole high speed solar wind and coronal mass ejections are de-scribed here for potential users of these samples.

Allton, J. H.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Anomalous low level of cosmic ray intensity decreases observed during 1980

Past studies have revealed solar cycle changes in the sunspot activity, as well as in many other solar parameters, such as, solar flares and solar coronal holes. These solar features in turn produce the observed cyclic variations in the interplanetary plasma and fields. Both the cosmic ray intensity as well as the intensity of geomagnetic disturbances are affected by the interplanetary changes and produce 11/22 year periodicity. An anomalous situation has been noticed during the year 1980 (period of high sunspot activity), when both the geomagnetic disturbance index Ap, as well as the magnitude and number of Forbush decreases as small. Such an anomaly occurs, in spite of the fact that both the sunspot numbers and the energetic solar flares are almost maximum during the present solar cycle.

Jain, A. K.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Highly Structured Slow Solar Wind Emerging From an Equatorial Coronal Hole

At solar minimum, the solar wind is observed at high solar latitudes as a predominantly fast (> 500 km/s), highly Alfvenic, rarefied stream of plasma originating deep within coronal holes, while near the ecliptic plane it is interspersed with a more variable slow (< 500 kms) wind. The precise origins of the slow wind streams are less certain, with theories and observations supporting sources from the tips of helmet streamers, interchange reconnection near coronal hole boundaries, and origins within coronal holes with highly diverging magnetic fields. The heating mechanism required to drive the solar wind is also an open question and candidate mechanisms include Alfven wave turbulence, heating by reconnection in nanoflares, ion cyclotron wave heating and acceleration by thermal gradients1. At 1 au, the wind is mixed and evolved and much of the diagnostic structure of these sources and processes has been lost. Here we present new measurements from Parker Solar Probe at 36 to 54 solar radii that show clear evidence of slow, Alfvenic solar wind emerging from a small equatorial coronal hole. The measured magnetic field exhibits patches of large, intermittent reversals associated with jets of plasma and enhanced Poynting flux and interspersed in a smoother and less turbulent flow with near-radial magnetic field. Furthermore, plasma wave measurements suggest electron and ion velocity-space micro-instabilities that have been identified with plasma heating and thermalization processes. Our measurements suggest an impulsive mechanism associated with solar wind energization and a heating role for micro-instabilities and provide strong evidence for low latitude coronal holes as a significant contribution to the source of the slow solar wind.

Solar physics↗
NASA NTRS1978

A survey of coronal holes and their solar wind associations throughout sunspot cycle 20

Space-borne X-ray and XUV observations during the period 1963-74 (corresponding approximately with solar cycle 20) have been used to investigate the relationship between the occurrence and variability of coronal holes and solar activity, i.e., the solar wind. Results indicate that polar holes (prominent at solar minimum) decreased in area as solar activity increased. The equatorial holes were also small during this period and persisted for one or two solar rotations only. Solar wind streams in excess of 500 km/s were associated with coronal holes at less than 40 deg latitude, although solar coronal holes appear to have no associated wind streams at earth.

Broussard, R. M.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Analysis of Solar Wind Damage in Genesis Sapphire Sample 61527

The Genesis mission collected samples of the solar wind (SW) by passive implantation into a variety of semiconductor (and other) materials and re-turned them to Earth in 2004. Subsets of these col-lector materials were exposed to either bulk solar wind, high-speed (coronal hole) solar wind, low speed (inter-stream) solar wind, or coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Although of short duration relative to naturally space-weathered materials, these exposures to SW caused structural damage (and related chemical changes) in silicon. Here we explore the structural consequences of bulk SW collection into Genesis single crystal sapphire.

L P Keller↗
NASA NTRS1976

Coronal holes as sources of solar wind

We investigate the association of high-speed solar wind with coronal holes during the Skylab mission by: (1) direct comparison of solar wind and coronal X-ray data; (2) comparison of near-equatorial coronal hole area with maximum solar wind velocity in the associated streams; and (3) examination of the correlation between solar and interplanetary magnetic polarities. We find that all large near-equatorial coronal holes seen during the Skylab period were associated with high-velocity solar wind streams observed at 1 AU.

Nolte, J. T.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Coronal holes and solar wind streams during the sunspot cycle

Complementary synoptic observations of the Sun and interplanetary space have been obtained nearly continuously for more than two sunspot cycles and have led to new ideas about the origin of the solar wind. These observations show an inverse correlation between wind speed at Earth and magnetic flux tube expansion in the corona, with fast wind originating from slowly diverging tubes and vice versa. Although this result is consistent with the Skylab-era concept that fast wind originates from the center of a large isolated coronal hole, it implies that the wind may be even faster at the facing edges of like-polarity holes where the flux-tubes converge as they begin their outward extension. Thus, very fast wind ought to originate from the high-latitude edges of the circumpolar holes soon after sunspot maximum and from the mid-latitude necks of the polar-hole lobes during the declining phase of the cycle. The observed inverse correlation may be understood physically in terms of a model in which Alfven waves boost the wind to high speed provided that the wave energy flux is distributed approximately uniformly at the coronal base.

Sheeley, N. R., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Solar polar coronal hole - A mathematical simulation

The northern polar region of the sun was studied during July 1973 by Munro and Jackson through use of the white-light coronagraph and the X-ray photographs produced by the Skylab mission. They described the northern polar hole as nearly axisymmetric and gave the geometry and density distribution under this approximation. The present work gives quasi-radial approximation to the full magnetohydrodynamic equations for axisymmetric, polytropic solar wind flow to simulate this polar hole, with the benefit that model temperature and magnetic field intensities and distributions in this particular polar hole can be deduced. It is concluded that from 2 out to 5 solar radii the temperature varies only slightly with radius, but is larger near the center of the polar hole than at the edge. It is also found that the magnetic field intensity at 2 solar radii could be about 1 gauss at the center of the hole, decreasing toward the edge of the hole. If this is extrapolated to the surface, a field as high as 20 gauss is suggested.

Suess, S. T.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Reconnection-Driven Coronal-Hole Jets with Gravity and Solar Wind

Coronal-hole jets occur ubiquitously in the Sun's coronal holes, at EUV and X-ray bright points associated with intrusions of minority magnetic polarity. The embedded-bipole model for these jets posits that they are driven by explosive, fast reconnection between the stressed closed field of the embedded bipole and the open field of the surrounding coronal hole. Previous numerical studies in Cartesian geometry, assuming uniform ambient magnetic field and plasma while neglecting gravity and solar wind, demonstrated that the model is robust and can produce jet-like events in simple configurations. We have extended these investigations by including spherical geometry,gravity, and solar wind in a nonuniform, coronal hole-like ambient atmosphere. Our simulations confirm that the jet is initiated by the onset of a kink-like instability of the internal closed field, which induces a burst of reconnection between the closed and external open field, launching a helical jet. Our new results demonstrate that the jet propagation is sustained through the outer corona, in the form of a traveling nonlinear Alfven wave front trailed by slower-moving plasma density enhancements that are compressed and accelerated by the wave. This finding agrees well with observations of white-light coronal-hole jets, and can explain microstreams and torsional Alfven waves detected in situ in the solar wind. We also use our numerical results to deduce scaling relationships between properties of the coronal source region and the characteristics of the resulting jet, which can be tested against observations.

Karpen, J. T.↗
NASA NTRS1978

The relationship between solar activity and coronal hole evolution

The relationship between coronal hole evolution and solar active regions during the Skylab period is examined. A tendency is found for holes to grow or remain stable when the activity nearby, seen as calcium plages and bright regions in X-rays, is predominantly large, long-lived regions. It is also found that there is a significantly higher number of small, short-lived active regions, as indicated by X-ray bright points, in the vicinity of decaying holes than there is near other holes. This is interpreted to mean that holes disappear at least in part because they become filled with many small scale, magnetically closed, X-ray emitting features. This interpretation, together with the observation that the number of X-ray bright points was much larger near solar minimum than it was during the Skylab period, provides a possible explanation for the disappearance of the large, near-equatorial coronal holes at the time of solar minimum.

Nolte, J. T.↗
NASA NTRS1982

The influence of solar active region evolution on solar wind streams, coronal hole boundaries and geomagnetic storms

Solar and interplanetary data are examined, taking into account the identification of the heliographic longitudes of the coronal source regions of high speed solar wind (SW) streams by Nolte and Roelof (1973). Nolte and Roelof have 'mapped' the velocities measured near earth back to the sun using the approximation of constant radial velocity. The 'Carrington carpet' for rotations 1597-1616 is shown in a graph. Coronal sources of high speed streams appear in the form of solid black areas. The contours of the stream sources are laid on 'evolutionary charts' of solar active region histories for the Southern and Northern Hemispheres. Questions regarding the interplay of active regions and solar wind are investigated, giving attention to developments during the years 1973, 1974, and 1975.

Gold, R. E.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Evidence of outward flow of plasma in a coronal hole

The solar spectrum was photographed in the range 200-700 A with a grazing-incidence stigmatic rocket spectrograph. Doppler shifts of the three coronal lines Si XI (303 A), Mg X (610 A), and Mg IX (368 A) were measured for various regions of the solar disk, including a coronal hole. From the relative shifts in the latter region, an average outward velocity of 16 km/s was computed for the plasma in the coronal hole. The full widths at half-maximum for the above lines were appreciably less in the coronal-hole region than in a quiet region, indicating a lower temperature in the hole. Both the measured velocity and the temperature results are consistent with solar-wind data and with current theories of coronal holes.

Cushman, G. W.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Using Polar Coronal Hole Area Measurements to Determine the Solar Polar Magnetic Field Reversal in Solar Cycle 24

An analysis of solar polar coronal hole (PCH) areas since the launch of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows how the polar regions have evolved during Solar Cycle 24. We present PCH areas from mid-2010 through 2013 using data from the Atmospheric Imager Assembly (AIA) and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) instruments onboard SDO. Our analysis shows that both the northern and southern PCH areas have decreased significantly in size since 2010. Linear fits to the areas derived from the magnetic-field properties indicate that, although the northern hemisphere went through polar-field reversal and reached solar-maximum conditions in mid-2012, the southern hemisphere had not reached solar-maximum conditions in the polar regions by the end of 2013. Our results show that solar-maximum conditions in each hemisphere, as measured by the area of the polar coronal holes and polar magnetic field, will be offset in time.

Observation↗
NASA NTRS1985

Latitude variation of recurrent fluxes in the outer solar system

Recurrent low energy (not less than 0.5 MeV) proton flux enhancements, reliable indicators of corotating plasma inteaction regions in interplanetary space, have been observed on the Voyager 1 and 2 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft in the heliographic latitude range 2 deg S to 23 deg N and the heliocentric radial range 11 to 20 AU. After a period of rather high correlation between fluxes at different latitudes in early 1983, distinct differences develop. The evolution of the fluxes appears to be related to the temporal and latitudinal dynamics of solar coronal holes, suggesting that information about the latitudinal structure of solar wind stream sources propagates to these distances.

Christon, S. P.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Transition region, corona, and solar wind in coronal holes

The formation of wind-driven solar model based on a new hypothesis for nonlinear wave dissipation is described. The equations and solutions used to derive the model are examined. The corona and solar wind are analyzed. The model is applied to observations and it is detected that it displays the proper steep temperature rise to a maximum coronal temperature in excess of 10 to the 6th K, a solar wind flux in excess of 3.5 x 10 to the 8th/sq cm per sec at 1 AU, and nonthermal velocities are observed at the bases of coronal holes; however, the model does not produce enough detail.

Hollweg, J. V.↗