The Crafoord Prize symposium in astronomy was held on the 15th of May at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, where the laureates and invited speakers gave lectures on their subjects focused on the topic “New Avenues in Solar and Stellar Physics”. One of the invited speakers was Jaime de la Cruz Rodriguez, researcher at the Department of Astronomy and Institute for Solar Physics, who presented his research. In the presentation titled “A High-Resolution View of Solar Oscillations and Waves”, he discussed his work on the connection of waves and shocks in the solar atmosphere to the chromospheric heating problem. The chromospheric heating problem is one of the longstanding questions in solar physics. Contrary to intuition, the solar atmosphere gets increasingly hotter when moving outward from the surface. This problem has been known for roughly a century, and solar physicists are still trying to find the key underlying processes behind this highly complex phenomenon.

Adur Pastor Yabar. Credit: Dan Kiselman

Adur Pastor Yabar, researcher at the Department of Astronomy and Institute for Solar Physics, received the Crafoord Scholarship 2024 on the 16th of May. The scholarship is provided by the Crafoord Foundation. It was awarded to him to support his research on solar flares. Solar flares are the most energetic events in the outer solar atmosphere. It is believed that solar flares are one of the components responsible for the heating of the outer layers of the solar atmosphere. Using this scholarship, Adur will work on revealing the mysteries behind the processes that trigger solar flares and how they deposit their energy into the solar atmosphere.

Jaime de la Cruz Rodriguez. Credit: Gloria Canocchi