![]() ![]() This blots out its blindingly bright rays and allows astronomers to study the relatively dim light of background stars. The May 1919 eclipse provided that opportunity.”ĭuring a total solar eclipse, the disc of the Moon passes in front of the Sun. What was needed was a specific testable prediction to show his theory was right. “But these were post hoc rationalisations. “Einstein used existing astronomical observations to support his theory – for example, known anomalies in the orbit of Mercury round the Sun,” says Carolin Crawford, of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. Even a beam of light would bend as it passed along this section of curved space. From this perspective, a body in orbit around the Sun is actually going in a straight line but through space that has been bent by the mass of the Sun. Instead, he maintained, it was the result of an object’s mass causing space to curve. In his 1915 theory, Einstein argued that gravity was not a force that acted at a distance between objects, as Isaac Newton had stated. These speeds are so high that the particles can escape the Sun's gravity.Ĭonceptual animation (not to scale) showing the Sun's corona and solar wind.These risks doubtless caused worries but they were well worth facing, Eddington reckoned, for he believed his observations could prove, or disprove, the most revolutionary scientific idea to have been put forward in modern science: Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. ![]() The corona's temperature causes its particles to move at very high speeds. From it comes the solar wind that travels through our solar system. ![]() We can view these features in detail with special telescopes. These include streamers, loops, and plumes. The Sun's magnetic fields affect charged particles in the corona to form beautiful features. This is the force that makes magnets stick to metal, like the door of your refrigerator. The surface of the Sun is covered in magnetic fields. But astronomers think that this is only one of many ways in which the corona is heated. In the corona, the heat bombs explode and release their energy as heat. The mission discovered packets of very hot material called "heat bombs" that travel from the Sun into the corona. Yet the corona is hundreds of times hotter than the Sun’s surface.Ī NASA mission called IRIS may have provided one possible answer. The corona is in the outer layer of the Sun’s atmosphere-far from its surface. This is the opposite of what seems to happen on the Sun.Īstronomers have been trying to solve this mystery for a long time. But when you walk away from the fire, you feel cooler. Imagine that you’re sitting next to a campfire. The corona’s high temperatures are a bit of a mystery. Image of corona from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory showing features created by magnetic fields. This low density makes the corona much less bright than the surface of the Sun. Why? The corona is about 10 million times less dense than the Sun’s surface. The corona reaches extremely high temperatures. Find tips on how to safely view an eclipse here. Remember to never look directly at the Sun, even during an eclipse.
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