Science: For the first time, scientists have taken near-daily measurements of the Sun’s global coronal magnetic field, a region of the Sun that has only been observed irregularly in the past. The resulting observations are providing valuable insights into the processes that drive the intense solar storms that impact fundamental technologies, and thus lives and livelihoods, here on Earth.
The research was funded by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Key R&D Program of China and supported by the Newkirk graduate student fellowship awarded to Zihao Yang, lead author, by NSF NCAR. See NSF NCAR News article.
An illustration of the global coronal magnetic field as the Sun rotates. The background shows the solar corona observed in the extreme-ultraviolet waveband, with global coronal magnetic field maps measured at different times overlapped on top of it.