Spicules are rapidly evolving fine-scale jets of magnetized plasma in the solar chromosphere. It remains unclear how these prevalent jets originate from the solar surface and what role they play in heating the solar atmosphere. Using the Goode Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory, we observed spicules emerging within minutes of the appearance of opposite-polarity magnetic flux around dominant-polarity magnetic field concentrations. Data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory showed subsequent heating of the adjacent corona. The dynamic interaction of magnetic fields (likely due to magnetic reconnection) in the partially ionized lower solar atmosphere appears to generate these spicules and heat the solar corona.
BIO:
Dr. Hui Tian obtained his Ph.D. from Peking University in 2010. From 2010 to 2012 he was an ASP Postdoc Fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), USA. After that he served as an astrophysicist for more than three years at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), USA. He returned to China in 2015, and is now a professor at the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Peking University. He also served as the director of the Key Laboratory of Solar Activity, Chinese Academy of Science since 2020. Dr. Hui Tian is mainly working on EUV spectroscopy of the solar transition region and corona, solar flares, and stellar magnetic activities. He used to be a member on the core team of NASA’s IRIS mission (2012-2015). Dr. Tian was appointed to be the head of a Max Planck partner group in 2016. He won the Distinguished Young Scientist Award from the National Science Foundation of China in 2018 and the Harvey Prize from the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society in 2020.
Host: Hua Feng
