The inset in this Solar Dynamics Observatory image shows a close-up view of a stunning coronal fan extending above the Sun’s atmosphere. These sweeping loops were observed on 7 March 2012 by a number of observatories, revealing the first known evidence of standing slow magnetoacoustic waves in cool coronal fan loops. The oscillations of the loops, studied in a recent article led by Vaibhav Pant (Indian Institute of Astrophysics), were triggered by blast waves that were generated by X-class flares from the distant active region AR 11429 (marked with the yellow box at left). The overplotted X-ray curve in the top right corner of the image (click for the full view) shows the evolution of the flares that perturbed the footpoints of the loops. You can check out the video of the action below, and follow the link to the original article to read more about what these oscillations tell us about the Sun’s activity.
Citation
V. Pant et al 2017 ApJL 847 L5. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aa880f
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