Niels Bohr Institute > Research > Astronomy > Computational Astrophy...
Computational Astrophysics
The Solar Corona, which may be seen during solar eclipses and on X-ray images of the Sun, has an extremely high temperature of several million degrees. This is several hundred times the temperature of the Sun's visible surface. Researchers are working on understanding the processes that generate the corona's remarkably high temperature, and on understanding plasma processes common with gamma-ray bursts occurring at cosmological distances.
Sunspots are another well known but still poorly understood phenomenon studied by astrophysicists. Sunspots are areas on the solar surface with very powerful magnetic fields causing, among other things, sunspots to be cooler and darker than the rest of the Sun's surface.
The Sun's Magnetic Field Structure is very dynamic and unstable and sends clouds of charged particles out into space at very high speeds. When such powerful eruptions strike the Earth, satellite communications may become disturbed and electric power grids may short circuit. By comparing computer simulations and seismological investigations of the Sun, researchers are trying to understand the cause of these outbreaks.
Star and Planet Formation. The Earth and other planets in the universe are made up of chemical elements that have been produced in earlier generations of stars. Deep in the stars' colossally hot cores, these elements are formed by fusion processes, and when stars die the elements are blasted out into space in huge clouds of gas and dust. Eventually, parts of the gas and dust are incorporated into 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.
To understand the mechanisms behind these astrophysical phenomena, the Computational Astrophysics research group works with supercomputer simulations and with advanced graphic visualization tools, while also trying to make the models sufficiently realistic for direct comparisons with observations.
The Numerical Astrophysics group’s own website >>