This Letter explores the relevance of nanoflare-based models for heating the quiet Sun corona. Using meterwave data from the Murchison Widefield Array, we present the first successful detection of impulsive emissions down to flux densities of ∼mSFU, about two orders of magnitude weaker than earlier attempts. These impulsive emissions have durations ≲1 s and are present throughout the quiet solar corona. The fractional time occupancy of these impulsive emissions at a given region is ≲10%. The histograms of these impulsive emissions follow a power-law distribution and show signs of clustering at small timescales. Our estimate of the energy that must be dumped in the corona to generate these impulsive emissions is consistent with the coronal heating requirements. Additionally, the statistical properties of these impulsive emissions are very similar to those recently determined for magnetic switchbacks by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP). We hope that this work will lead to a renewed interest in relating these weak impulsive emissions to the energy deposited in the corona, the quantity of physical interest from a coronal heating perspective, and explore their relationship with the magnetic switchbacks observed by the PSP.

Solar radio emission, especially at metre-wavelengths, is well known to vary over small spectral ( 100 kHz) and temporal (< 1 s) spans. It is comparatively recently, with the advent of a new generation of instruments, that it has become possible to capture data with sufficient resolution (temporal, spectral and angular) that one can begin to characterize the solar morphology simultaneously along the axes of time and frequency. This ability is naturally accompanied by an enormous increase in data volumes and computational burden, a problem which will only become more acute with the next generation of instruments such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The usual approach, which requires manual guidance of the calibration process, is impractical. Here we present the "Automated Imaging Routine for Compact Arrays for the Radio Sun (AIRCARS)", an end-to-end imaging pipeline optimized for solar imaging with arrays with a compact core. We have used AIRCARS so far on data from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) Phase-I. The dynamic range of the images is routinely from a few hundred to a few thousand. In the few cases, where we have pushed AIRCARS to its limits, the dynamic range can go as high as ∼75000. The images made represent a substantial improvement in the state-of-the-art in terms of imaging fidelity and dynamic range. This has the potential to transform the multi-petabyte MWA solar archive from raw visibilities into science-ready images. AIRCARS can also be tuned to upcoming telescopes like the SKA, making it a very useful tool for the heliophysics community.