A research team from Predictive Science Inc. (PSI) used the Stampede2supercomputer at The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to forecast the corona of the sun during the upcoming eclipse. The findings shed light on what the eclipse of the sun might look like Aug. 21 when it will be visible across much of the U.S., tracing a 70-mile-wide band across 14 states.
Beyond their rarity, solar eclipses help astronomers better understand the sun’s structure, inner workings and the space weather it generates.
A research team from Predictive Science Inc. (PSI) used the Stampede2supercomputer at The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to forecast the corona of the sun during the upcoming eclipse. The findings shed light on what the eclipse of the sun might look like Aug. 21 when it will be visible across much of the U.S., tracing a 70-mile-wide band across 14 states.
Beyond their rarity, solar eclipses help astronomers better understand the sun’s structure, inner workings and the space weather it generates.
The researchers completed a series of highly detailed solar simulations timed to the moment of the eclipse using TACC’s Stampede2, Comet at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and NASA’s Pleiadessupercomputer. They modeled the sun’s surface and predicted what the solar corona — the aura of plasma that surrounds the sun and extends millions of kilometers into space — will look like during this eclipse.
“Advanced computational resources are crucial to developing detailed physical models of the solar corona and solar wind,” said Jon Linker, president and senior research scientist of PSI. “The growth in the power of these resources in recent years has fueled an increase in not only the resolution of these models, but the sophistication of the way the models treat the underlying physical processes as well.”
Read more at University of Texas At Austin
Image: A visualization of the Sun's three-dimensional magnetic field. By tracing magnetic field lines at extremely high resolution, researchers highlight the inherent complexity of the Sun's magnetic field and its intimate connection to visible emission from the solar corona. Photo courtesy of Predictive Science, Inc.
