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DCSC Scientific Illustration

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Picture: Solar flares, Nasa


Numerical Astrophysics

The research group works with calculations and computer simulations of astrophysical phenomena, e.g. the remarkable corona of the sun whose temperature is 100 times higher than the sun's visible surface. The purpose of the experiments is to understand the mechanisms behind the Corona's extremely high temperatures of up to 3 million degrees.

Sun spots are another notable phenomenon to which astrophysicists are examining. Sun spots are areas on the sun's surface which have a very powerful magnetic field, and that causes, among other things, that the surface in sunspots is colder than the rest of the Sun's surface.

The Sun's Magnetic Field Structure is very dynamic and unstable and can send clouds of charged particles out into space at very high speed. If such a powerful eruption struck the Earth, it could create problems for satellite communication and cause electricity supplies to short circuit in large regions. With the help of seismological investigations, researchers can now also study the dynamic processes inside the sun.

Star formation and star death is studied by the researchers. The earth and other planets in the universe are made up of elements which have been produced in earlier generations of stars. Deep in the star's colossally hot core, the elements are formed from hydrogen, and when the stars die, the elements are blasted out into the universe in huge clouds of gas and dust. Eventually, all that dust gathers into lumps and becomes new stars and planets. But how does it happen, and how fast?

The First Earth-like planet in the Milky Way was observed by Danish Astronomers from the Niels Bohr Institute together with an international team of researchers using a Danish telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The discovery was made using a method where the light from powerful background stars is studied as it is deflected and strengthened on its way to Earth by intervening stars.