XRT Picture of the Week (XPOW)

XRT Picture of the Week (XPOW)

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2012 March 19


Click for full-disk movie.
Also available on YouTube


X-Ray Jet on 2012/03/16

The animation above shows an x-ray jet that popped up above NOAA active region 11433 on March 16th. Jets like this are thought to be caused by the meeting of open magnetic field lines and loops emerging from the solar interior. As flux wells up from beneath the surface, the newly emerged loops may collide with existing field lines, spurring a magnetic reconnection event that releases energy and causes plasma to stream out along the open field line. A schematic of this model, developed by Masumi Shimojo and Kazunari Shibata, can be found here.


Keywords: Jet, Quiet Sun
Filters: Ti_poly



(Prepared by Patrick McCauley)

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