Magnetic bright points in the solar granulation (1/2)

Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope

These images show tiny magnetic bright points embedded in the darkest regions of the solar granulation, the so-called intergranular lanes. There, the gas moves downwards into subsurface layers. The observations were taken with the Crisp Imaging Spectropolarimeter at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope in the neutral iron line at 617.3 nm. The two images show the continuum intensity at 617.3 recorded by the instrument 4 minutes apart (so that the evolution can be observed).

Magnetic bright points represent features with intense magnetic fields (of the order of 1000-2000 G). They appear bright in continuum intensity because they are evacuated (less dense) and therefore less opaque than the surroundings, so that we observe deeper into the solar atmosphere where the temperature is higher. We can trace the evolution of these magnetic features by following bright points in continuum intensity. Those observations are easier to perform and reach much higher spatial resolution than full polarization measurements (from which quantitative information on the magnetic field can be extracted).

Image credit: Luis Bellot Rubio (IAA-CSIC), Sara Esteban Pozuelo (IAA-CSIC), Ada Ortiz (ITA)