Content overview: “Laser Plasma Experiment Reveals How Instabilities Heat the Sun's Corona to Millions of Deg”. A new laboratory experiment using high-powered lasers to blast plasma has uncovered a mechanism that may explain one of the sun's most enduring mysteries: why its outer atmosphere, the corona, is millions of degrees hotter than its visible surface. The sun's surface radiates at a relatively cool 5,8 Laser Plasma Experiment Reveals How Instabilities Heat the Sun's Corona to Millions of Degrees
A new laboratory experiment using high-powered lasers to blast plasma has uncovered a mechanism that may explain one of the sun's most enduring mysteries: why its outer atmosphere, the corona, is millions of degrees hotter than its visible surface. The sun's surface radiates at a relatively cool 5,800 Kelvin, but electrons in the corona can reach temperatures of millions of degrees—a disparity that has puzzled astronomers for decades. The full version stays on the original page, which this listing opens directly.