Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have been working as part of an international research team to capture a completely new view of the Sun, helping to unlock many of its mysteries. 

The Queen’s experts, based in the School of Mathematics and Physics, worked for over two years on the Sunrise III Mission, which is a major international balloon-borne solar observatory, led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS).

Unprecedented

During its flight in July 2024, the observatory carried a one-metre solar telescope above most of Earth’s atmosphere, together with a new suite of advanced instruments designed to observe the Sun’s visible surface and lower atmosphere in unprecedented detail.

It cruised around for six-and-a-half days capturing data. The findings have now been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, marking the start of a comprehensive focus issue, dedicated exclusively to the results of the Sunrise III mission.

There are more than 30 early-science papers based on the mission and six researchers from Queen’s have been involved in producing these. Dr Shahin Jafarzadeh, research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, is lead author of three. 

Dr Jafarzadeh said: “As a scientist, this has been a hugely exciting project to work on. For almost a week, the Sunrise III observatory took a stratospheric flight, stretching from the northernmost tip of Sweden to Canada’s Northwest Territories.

“We were ecstatic to find that it had captured a treasure trove of data -– more than 200 terabytes. As part of an international team, we have been working through the data and it has been thrilling to find that these observations offer unprecedented views of the Sun.

“Sunrise III gives us an extraordinary new view of the Sun’s lower atmosphere. For the first time, we can study how waves behave across many different atmospheric layers, with exceptional spatial and spectral detail. This allows us to investigate how energy and information travel through magnetically structured regions such as sunspots and pores.”

Professor David Jess, from the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s University Belfast is a key co-author on the Queen’s-led Sunrise III papers. 

Prof Jess said: “This is an outstanding example of what can be achieved when the solar physics expertise at Queen's is combined with the exceptional instrumentation and mission leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

“Dr Jafarzadeh's work has revealed how magnetic structures reshape the distribution of wave energy, uncovered the remarkably rich spectrum of oscillations within sunspots and, for the first time, traced the behaviour of distinct wave modes across multiple layers of a solar pore. These discoveries demonstrate both the extraordinary scientific power of Sunrise III and the strength of the collaboration between Queen’s and MPS.”

The wider research which has been published includes studies of sunspots, waves, flares, solar tornado-like structures, and other highly dynamic solar phenomena.

The mission observed a roughly 2,000km-thick region of the Sun in unprecedented detail and continuously over several hours. This region encompasses the Sun’s visible surface, the so-called photosphere, as well as the adjacent chromosphere above it.

A real showcase

The experts have also found that the complex interaction of hot plasma, fluctuating magnetic fields, and waves in this region is responsible for our star’s violent outbursts that hurl particles and radiation into space.

During the mission’s flight, the Sun offered a real showcase of its capabilities. As well as revealing calm regions representing its moderate “normal” state, there were also numerous signs of its temperament, such as sunspots, small and large solar flares, and regions of particularly high magnetic field strength.

These first results represent only a small fraction of the data collected during the mission’s flight.

More information about the Sunrise mission is available at: https://www.mps.mpg.de/solar-physics/sunrise