Physicists from Ireland and France announced this week a major new finding about how matter behaves in the extreme conditions of the Sun's atmosphere.
On Earth, we deal with simple matters like liquids, gasses, and solids. Our Sun, on the other hand, is a giant ball of unstable fluid known as plasma. With plasma in short supply on Earth, we struggle to study how it works, but new observations of the Sun’s atmosphere have revealed some of the secrets behind plasma’s instability. This could lead to the development of a more efficient and safer source of nuclear power.
The scientists used large radio telescopes and ultraviolet cameras on a NASA spacecraft to better understand the exotic but poorly understood “fourth state of matter”. Known as plasma, this matter could hold the key to developing safe, clean and efficient nuclear energy generators on Earth.
Dr. Eoin Carley, postdoctoral research at Trinity College Dublin and the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS), explains this new discovery:
"We worked closely with scientists at the Paris Observatory and performed observations of the Sun with a large radio telescope located in Nançay in central France. We combined the radio observations with ultraviolet cameras on NASA's space-based Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft to show that plasma on the sun can often emit radio light that pulses like a light-house. We have known about this activity for decades, but our use of space and ground-based equipment allowed us to image the radio pulses for the first time and see exactly how plasmas become unstable in the solar atmosphere."
The scientists published their findings in the leading international journal, Nature Communications.
Solar Dynamics Observatory Shows Sun's Rainbow of Wavelengths - Image credit: NASA
By understanding the source of the Sun’s plasma instability, scientists can then discover new methods of stabilizing plasma for use in nuclear fusion.
Professor at DIAS and collaborator on the project, Peter Gallagher, said: "Nuclear fusion is a different type of nuclear energy generation that fuses plasma atoms together, as opposed to breaking them apart like fission does. Fusion is more stable and safer, and it doesn't require highly radioactive fuel; in fact, much of the waste material from fusion is inert helium."
Unfortunately, nuclear fusion plasmas remain highly unstable, and a natural process prevents the reaction necessary to generate energy. By understanding how these plasmas become unstable—by observing changes in the sun’s atmosphere—we might just have the information we need to learn how to control them to make nuclear fusion a reality.
Despite this new discovery, we still need to wait to see if it pays off in practical applications. The scientists involved with this research are optimistic, but even in ideal circumstances, it will take quite some time before the world can benefit from a functional nuclear fusion reactor. Nevertheless, the new equipment and techniques used to acquire this data will continue to provide new useful observations as time progresses. We still have a lot to learn about plasma, but scientists have now overcome a major hurdle that once prevented us from defining the unknown.
"The collaboration with French scientists is ongoing and we're already making progress with newly built radio telescopes in Ireland, such as the Irish Low Frequency Array (I-LOFAR). I-LOFAR can be used to uncover new plasma physics on the Sun in far greater detail than before, teaching us about how matter behaves in both plasmas on the Sun, here on Earth and throughout the Universe in general." said Dr. Carley.