Measuring the Coronal Temperature with Iron

This image of the solar corona contains a color overlay of the emission from highly ionized iron lines and white light taken of the 2008 eclipse. Red indicates iron line Fe XI 789.2 nm, blue represents iron line Fe XIII 1074.7 nm, and green shows iron line Fe XIV 530.3 nm. This is the first such map of the 2-D distribution of coronal electron temperature and ion charge state. Credit: Habbal, et al.

Astronomers presenting at this week's AAS conference have reported on new research measuring the temperature of the solar corona. The work combines observations of the Sun's outer reaches from observations during total solar eclipses in 2006, 2008, and 2009. It utilized mapping of various abundances of ionized iron to build a two dimensional temperature map.

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