CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Coronal heating is one of the most challenging and important problems in astrophysics. We here review some of the critical aspects of the problem and suggest that the most likely explanation is Parker´s long-standing idea of nanoflares occurring in magnetic fields that become tangled by photospheric convection. An exciting new development is the identification of the "secondary instability" as the likely mechanism of energy release. We also present some preliminary new results indicating that the rise, main, and decay phases of the soft X-ray light curves of observed coronal loops might be associated with the development, maintenance, and destruction of self-organized critical systems.