Yes, the Sun Is an Ordinary, Solar-Type Star After All (1 of 1) (VIDEO)
Caption
In this video you are placed inside a simulation of the interior of a solar-type star. The red and blue shapes represent the turbulent convective motions that animate the external shell of the Sun, which covers 30% of its radius. Inflow (blue) and outflows (red) change properties from the equator to the pole due to the influence of the global rotation of the star. The turbulent motions inside the Sun generate a large-scale magnetic field, which is represented by the white-blue tubes (color represents the polarity of the magnetic field). Two main structures emerge, one in each hemisphere. While the convective cells typically live for about a month, this magnetic field reverses (i.e. changes sign) on a decadal time-scale, as shown by the time-lapses in the video. This reversal is regular and occurs because of the non-linear modulation by magnetic torques of the large-scale flows inside the turbulent convection zone. By carrying out a series of such simulations, we show that the magnetic cycle directly depends on the rotation rate and luminosity of the star, which can be expressed as a function of only one parameter, called the Rossby number. NOTE: This is a medium size file, best-viewed by powerful smartphones. If you do not have access to a VR headset, you may visualize this file on your computer with the 'Gopro VR Player,' which you may download. The movie must be viewed in 'mono' mode (no stereoscopy), using an equirectangular projection (it is the default setting for most VR headset and softwares). This material relates to a paper that appeared in the July 14, 2017 issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by A. Strugarek at Université de Montréal in Montréal, QC, Canada, and colleagues was titled, "Reconciling solar and stellar magnetic cycles with nonlinear dynamo simulations."
Credit
University of Montréal - DAp/CEA - AIM
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