Stunning New Images Show The Face of The Sun Like We've Never Seen It Before
14:54, 7 September
A slice of the Sun's chromosphere in high-resolution, showing hair-like jets of plasma.
Credit: (NSO/AURA/NSF)
A new portrait from the world's most powerful solar telescope has captured the face of our Sun in exquisite detail.
- Share on Facebook
- Share on VK
- Share on Twitter
Up close and personal to the giant star, at a resolution of just 18 kilometers, the middle layer of the Sun's atmosphere, known as the chromosphere, looks almost like a shag rug.
Each of these portraits is about 82,500 kilometers (51,260 miles) wide, which is only a single-digit percentage of the Sun's total diameter.
The mind-boggling achievement marks the one-year anniversary of the Inouye Solar Telescope – the most powerful instrument of its kind – and the culmination of 25 years of careful planning.
The Sun's chromosphere, which sits below the corona, is usually invisible and can only be seen during a total solar eclipse, when it creates a red rim around the blacked out star. But new technology has changed that. Inouye telescope is able to see features within the Sun's chromosphere as small as the island of Manhattan.
Now, astronomer and space telescope scientist Matt Mountain, president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), says we have cut the ribbon on a "new era of Solar Physics".
The insights gained from this new perspective will help scientists predict and prepare for solar storms, which can send a tsunami of hot plasma and magnetism all the way from the Sun's corona to Earth, possibly causing global blackouts and internet outages for months.
The Inouye Solar Telescope is built on the Maui volcano, which is culturally and spiritually important to Native Hawaiian people. The NSF proudly claims to have included native Hawaiian input throughout the telescope's construction.
