Solar Dance

Tricia Steele

Imagine twirling in a way
where your middle, 
widest part
whirls the fastest—
like a ballerina
who forgets to spot,
her head trailing,
flailing behind
an ever faster 
outstretched leg:
this is our sun,

rotating gas
that doesn’t spin
like ball on a finger
but like a spherical stage
of circular tracks —
despite longer length
around the girth,
equator dancers
monthly lap
the shorter
slower edges.

If ever turning figures
on sphere of stages stacked
(speed matched to size)
becomes instead
an apple cored,
see a slicer 
head to toe
making wedges 
like a snack:
this is our star’s 
magnetic field—

strung like power grid
from pole to pole,
longways atop
that strange rotation 
while electric currents emanate
from inside where
conductive plasma churns
(fusion forged fire
of elemental parts
magnetized, resistant)
creating a solar dynamo.

Eleven years these molten bits
pirouette with oddly
differed rhythm,
twisting magnetic field
into darkened spots that one day snap—
charged poles, charged core
flipping end o’er end,
flings tangled flares
into crowd of space,
ejects coronal mass like sweat;
we snap auroras in our skies.

The Science

Visualizing the solar realities that create captivating auroras (and sometimes interfere with our technology) is challenging. Without telescopes, we cannot even look at the sun; we only “see” those glorious coronal waves during an eclipse through filters and reflections. The eleven-year solar cycle of increased and decreased solar activity may be commonly known, but I wanted to make the underlying explanations for solar flares more accessible to the imagination. While scientists observe differential rotation on other gas planets, the combination of behaviors that cause solar phenomena is outside our earthly experience of motion. 

While researching a story about the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, I interviewed Dr. Claire Raftery at the National Solar Observatory who dramatically deepened my understanding of the complexity of solar prediction. The timing and intensity of solar flares and coronal mass ejections impact research, national security, and international communication; so, increasingly powerful tools must continue to study the sun. The Inouye has since captured high-resolution images of solar flares, showing the coronal loops in stunning detail. The coronal mysteries remind us that there are still major areas of scientific understanding unfolding in our lifetimes.

When I started research into that story many years ago, I first called my former astrophysics professor, Dr. Paul Wallace, who is now the Astronomy Chair at Agnes Scott College. His breakdown of these fundamental properties of heliophysics was transformative. I credit him with the analogy of the apple slicer to visualize solar magnetic field lines. He was kind enough to fact check early versions of this poem.

The Poet

Tricia Steele is a freelance science writer based in the Blue Ridge mountains. She has an undergraduate degree in physics from Berry College and a master's degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her work can be found in The Science Writer, Rappahannock Review, Health Progress, Vine Leaves Press, The Memoirist, and Science Spectrum in addition to her personal work at SickPersonGuide.com and Medium.

Next poem: The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Judith Rawnsley