Overview

• Scientists from the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research have discovered a novel aurora-like radio emission occurring 40,000 km above a sunspot on the Sun.
• The radio emission shares characteristics with the auroral radio emissions commonly seen in planetary magnetospheres such as those around Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as certain low-mass stars.
• The newly observed solar radio emissions, detected over a vast sunspot region where magnetic fields on the Sun's surface are particularly strong, differ from previously known solar radio noise storms.
• The sunspot aurora emissions occur at frequencies ranging from hundreds of thousands of kHz to roughly 1 million kHz, a direct result of the sunspot's magnetic field being thousands of times stronger than Earth's.
• The discovery could have implications for astrophysicists to rethink their current models of stellar magnetic activity and may reveal fundamental connections in astrophysical phenomena.