South Cheshire Astronomical Society - Talk Archive Item

Further Information about the speaker, his work, and the talk gathered by our SCASTRO Secretary/Talks Arranger, Mike Maunder and issued in his meeting reminder email heralding the talk:-

The main aim of Tom's work at UCLAN is to understand the ongoing processes within the solar atmosphere that may be responsible for heating the solar corona to several million degrees. Additionally, his work involves working with international colleagues at NASA, where he collaborates with the science team on sounding rocket missions.

Unlike the atmosphere of the Earth, the temperature of the Sun’s atmosphere increases with altitude, to the point where temperatures exceed 1 million degrees. This discovery in the early 20th century led to the greatest mystery in solar physics, “What is heating the corona?” and remains unsolved to this day. Currently there are two schools of thought on what may be heating the Sun’s atmosphere: magnetic waves and small-scale (nano)flares. It is believed waves are dominant in regions where the Sun is not very active, whereas in regions of high activity, nanoflares are the dominant source of heating. This talk will primarily focus on these nanoflare events, and a couple of sounding rocket missions, which are a collaborative effort between NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, UCLAN, and other institutions.