Dynamics of Solar Granulation


Dynamics of Solar Granulation

Time-slice diagrams of solar granulation show the intensity of the granular pattern along a thin slice as a function of time. They are useful to determine evolution properties for a large number of granules. The movie shows in the top panel the granular evolution within a narrow strip of the solar surface of 60 arcsec length and 2.5 arcsec width. Centered within this strip is a slice of 0.5 arcsec width, which was used to construct the time-slice image shown in the bottom panel. The intergranular lane position, determined with help of a thinning algorithm, is indicated in the top panel by the vertical white lines. Their height and vertical position is identical to that of the slice. The bottom panel shows the corresponding time-slice diagram (time increases in vertical direction), where the horizontal white line indicates the time level corresponding to the time instant shown in the top panel. Also indicated in the bottom image is the skeleton of integranular lanes. It can be followed what kind of granular evolution produces what kind of structure (branching) in the skeleton plot of the integranular lanes.