Mystery of Sun's Outer Atmosphere Solved

xp65 writes "For decades, scientists have puzzled over the mystery of why temperatures in the solar corona, the sun's outer atmosphere, soar to several million Kelvin (K) — much hotter than temperatures nearer the sun's surface. New observations made with instruments aboard Japan's Hinode satellite reveal the culprit to be nanoflares. Nanoflares are small, sudden bursts of heat and energy. 'They occur within tiny strands that are bundled together to form a magnetic tube called a coronal loop,' says astrophysicist James Klimchuk. Coronal loops are the fundamental building blocks of the thin, translucent gas known as the sun's corona. The discovery that nanoflares play an important and perhaps dominant role in coronal heating paves the way to understanding how the sun affects Earth and its atmosphere."

Comments

Is it a theory?

[cbraescu1]

Is it a theory that explains all this or there are proven facts, too?

Re:Nice outdated explanation

[Latinhypercube]

Mod above post +1 inspired genius... When you realize the government has only just 'allowed' the mass production of wireless energy, especially since it was invented 100 years ago. You can see that there is a movement to suppress concepts of free electric energy, or widespread electrical transport within the universe. I wonder who might be against that... Power Companies, Military...

Re:See and understand the effect of poor moderatio

[Anonymous Coward]

'zactly. If the past 1000 years has taught us anything it's that mainstream scientists like to shout down people with theories that challenge their dogma until those theories are proven correct. Then they pat the guy on the back and say "Oops, sorry, you were right, we were all wrong. Look how willing to learn we all are. You're now our new hero. But if anyone challenges this new dogma we're gonna kick his ass."