Longitudinal component of the magnetic field at each point along the spatial direction indicated by the green line (IMAGE)

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC)

Longitudinal component of the magnetic field at each point along the spatial direction indicated by the green line

Caption

Longitudinal component of the magnetic field (in gauss) at each point along the spatial direction indicated by the green line in the left panels of figure 1. The strongest and weakest magnetic fields are found in the photosphere (green curve), where there are strongly magnetized regions (up to 1250 gauss) separated by others that are weakly magnetized (10 gauss). This substantial variation in the magnetic field intensity when moving horizontally in the photosphere decreases at heights corresponding to the lower chromosphere (blue symbols) and is even smaller in the intermediate (black symbols) and outer (red symbols) layers of the chromosphere. These results confirm and prove that, in such active regions of the solar atmosphere, the lines of force of the magnetic field expand and fill the whole chromosphere before reaching the base of the corona.

Credit

NAOJ, IAC, NASA/MSFC, IAS.

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