The Use of Space-Based and Ground-Based Observations to Analyze Extended Solar Coronal Jets

Our Sun is one of the most thermodynamically and magnetically active places in the solar system, with plasma constantly churning and twisting throughout the many layers of the star. This plasma has extreme magnetic properties that occasionally cause eruptions, the most powerful of which can endanger our modern way of life on Earth with devastating impacts to our power grid. A smaller but more frequent solar eruption is a solar coronal jet, which is a relatively small spire of plasma that erupts from the Sun. The mechanisms behind these jets are still up for debate—some jets barely make it off the Sun’s surface, while others extend far into the Sun’s outer layers. We investigated the properties of those extended solar coronal jets using both space-based observations made from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), located on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and ground-based observations from the Coronal Solar Magnetism Observatory (COSMO) K-coronagraph (K-Cor). We combined images taken from these instruments and studied jet velocity, temperature, and evolution. Our results illustrate how the velocity of solar coronal jets can vastly differ between different wavelengths, and how these extended jets rapidly accelerate away from the Sun into open space.