THE WILSON MODEL (1973)


An alternative possibility, depicted in the figure above, was suggested by Wilson (1973). In his model, the magnetic flux tube is detached from the main bundle of tubes well below the surface (at depths of about 12,000km). The detached tubes turbulently float to the surface developing twists and kinks, which then are seen as MMFs. Significantly, orientation of the MMFs bipoles in Wilson's model is exactly the opposite: magnetic elements of opposite polarity to the sunspot will tend to be formed close to the sunspot.


©BBSO/NJIT Seminar on OCT 99, 2000