Check out the first-ever map of the solar corona’s magnetic field

The sun’s wispy upper atmosphere, called the corona, is an ever-changing jungle of sizzling plasma. But mapping the strength of the magnetic fields that largely control that behavior has proved elusive. The fields are weak and the brightness of the sun outshines its corona.

Now though, observations taken using a specialized instrument called a coronagraph to block out the sun’s bright disk have allowed solar physicists to measure the speed and intensity of waves rippling through coronal plasma (SN: 3/19/09). “This is the first time we’ve mapped the coronal magnetic field on a large scale,” says Steven Tomczyk, a solar physicist at the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colo., who designed the coronagraph.

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