The first time scientists were able to discern the fine structure - the so-called "spit" - in the solar corona through which the corona is heated up to a million degrees, writes in an article published in the journal Nature, a team of scientists that conducted suborbital experiment Hi-C.

The high temperature of the corona is the uppermost layer of the solar atmosphere - still remained a mystery for astrophysicists. Underlying layers of the Sun - the solar chromosphere and photosphere is heated to a temperature of ten thousand degrees Kelvin. In the boundary layer between the crown and the photosphere several kilometers thick temperature in hundreds of thousands of times and up to several million degrees.

According to one of hypotheses required to heat energy is stored and released in twisted magnetic tubes, interlaced, are connected to each other and break down. These structures forming the so-called "magnetic pad", very small, and still there was no way to see them.

In July 2012 NASA and the Russian Physical Institute named Lebedev (FIAN) held a joint experiment Hi-C (High Resolution Coronal Imager), in which ultraviolet telescope was launched on a suborbital meteorological rocket. In the pictures from this telescope is the first time scientists were able to see the Sun diameters of about 150 kilometers, with the best solar telescopes have a resolution of no more than 900 kilometers. Processed the image, they received evidence that this "magnetic pad" really exists.

"We first saw a thin magnetic structures in the state weave, patterns that can store and release energy. Moreover, the energy stored in them corresponds to the energy needed to heat the corona," said RIA Novosti Sergey Bogachev, co-Director of the experiment Hi-C by FIAN.