A new solar
telescope in Hawaii has taken its first photo and video of the Sun. The images
are the highest-resolution views of our star ever taken, revealing details on
the Sun’s surface as small as 18 miles across.
The Daniel
K. Inouye Solar Telescope is located on Maui’s Haleakala volcano. The largest
solar telescope on Earth, with a primary mirror that is 4 meters (about 13
feet) wide, will be able to resolve smaller details on the Sun than ever
before. Scientists hope to better understand the remaining mysteries about our
nearest star thanks to the telescope’s sophisticated instruments and high
resolution.
A bubbling
star
Plasma cells
on the Sun’s surface are visible as a grainy pattern in the telescope’s “first
light” image. In a process known as convection, hot plasma from within the Sun
rises to the surface, cools, and sinks back down, similar to bubbling water in
a boiling pot.
First light
images of the Sun’s surface from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope show
convection cells the size of Texas and details as small as 30 kilometres (18
miles) across. Image: NSO/NSF/AURA
The brighter
areas in the photo are where new plasma has just risen up from below, while the
darker areas are where cooler plasma sinks back down. In this first image from
the telescope, the grains are about the size of Texas.
Some of the
greatest remaining mysteries about our star are linked to the bubbling motions
of hot plasma in the Sun. Because plasma is electrically charged, its motions
can create magnetic fields. Many of the Sun’s most dynamic behaviors, such as
solar storms that can disrupt satellites and power grids on Earth, are caused
by its magnetic fields.
According to Rebecca Centano Elliott, a solar scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “most solar storms originate in places on the Sun where there is strong magnetism, strong concentrations of magnetic forces.”
Magnetic
mysteries
Researchers
may be able to better predict when potentially dangerous solar storms will
occur when they can better understand and monitor magnetic fields on the Sun.
Many of the
telescope’s instruments are well suited to studying magnetic fields because
they can measure light properties other than brightness and color that contain
information about magnetic forces in the Sun’s atmosphere.
Furthermore,
the telescope’s ability to capture more minute details on the Sun’s surface
than ever before will help scientists in testing theories about the Sun’s
workings that had previously eluded observation.
“This is a huge leap for our field, I think, in terms of observations,” says Centano Elliott.