The new telescope built to study the Sun has released its first images, and they are simply breathtaking.
The surface of the Sun in the most exquisite detail we've ever seen – exposing Texas-sized convection granules and tiny magnetic elements – the roots of fields that extend far into space.
The telescope that took the pictures is the National Science Foundation's Daniel K. Inoui Solar Telescope in Haleakala, Maui. His incredible observations will provide a much better understanding of the wild dynamics of the sun's surface and how it affects us on Earth.
“This is literally the greatest leap forward in humanity's ability to study the sun from Earth since Galileo,” said astronomer Jeff Kuhn of the University of Hawaii Manoa.
The moving droplets you see are called granules. These are the tops of convection cells in the solar plasma, the hot plasma of which rises in the middle and then falls back at the edges as it flies out and cools.
Each granule is up to 1600 kilometers across.
It’s surprisingly enough to accept all this, but of particular interest to scientists are those magnetic fields, twisted and entangled by plasma, which can lead to powerful solar storms that can affect the Earth.
Powerful solar storms can impact communications and navigation systems and create magnificent auroras, but our understanding and ability to predict space weather is still extremely limited.
This is what the Daniel K. Inouy Solar Telescope will help improve.
“On Earth, we can predict whether it will rain somewhere accurately enough, and the era of space weather forecasting just hasn’t come yet,” said Matt Mountain of the Astronomy Research Association of Universities that runs Inoui.
“Our forecasts lag behind Earth's weather by 50 years, if not more. We need to understand the physics behind space weather, and it starts in the Sun and will be studied by the Inoui Solar Telescope over the next decades. '
With its suite of state-of-the-art instruments, some of which are not yet connected to the grid, the telescope will be able to measure and characterize these magnetic fields better than we have ever done before.
More high resolution photos.
Sources: Photo: NSO / AURA / NSF
