Scientists Propose Source of Unexplained Solar Jets Graduate student Joshua Latham with computer-generated images of magnetic field lines and plasma on the sun Newswise — Nothing seems more familiar than the sun in the sky. But mysterious swirls, jets, and flashes of powerful light that scientists cannot explain occur in the sun’s outer atmosphere all the time. Now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have gained insight into these puzzling phenomena. Using powerful computers to simulate the solar atmosphere, or corona, the researchers found that the swirls and flashes of X-ray light, together known as a coronal jets, could be caused by globs of plasma emerging from the sun in ball shapes that resemble magnetic shapes known as spheromaks. “This research confirms the hunches of PPPL physicist Masaaki Yamada, who first had the idea,” said Joshua Latham, first author of the paper reporting the results in