Sun’s Coronal Loops May Just Be An Optical Illusion

Coronal loops, emerging from the sun's surface, are captured in an image from the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer Spacecraft. TRACE was the third spacecraft in NASA's Small Explorer program and last transmitted to Earth in 2010. According to a new study, at least some of the coronal loops captured in images may just be optical illusions. (NASA/TRACE)

Scientists’ assumptions about strands of plasma looping around the sun are being challenged by a study providing new information on the solar atmosphere.

Coronal loops, which have long been thought to be strands of plasma in the sun’s atmosphere, may actually be optical illusions, according to research published in The Astrophysical Journal. Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) conducted a 3D simulation of the corona — the solar atmosphere’s outermost layer — which allowed them to identify individual coronal loops.