Sun's Surface Captured In Greatest Detail Ever
A telescope in Hawai on Wednesday released the sun's convulsing surface at the highest resolution ever taken, which some said looked like caramelised popcorn while others called it a gold-coloured cell-like pattern. The imagery show features as small as 30 km in size.
The world’s largest Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on January 29 released the shot at a level of detail never seen before.
Each of the cell-like structures is about the size of the US state of Texas, and the entire area covered is 11,800 miles by 6,700 miles. The cells are convecting masses of hot, excited gas, or plasma, with bright centres representing hot plasma while the surrounding dark lanes show where the plasma is cooling and sinking below the surface. The image begins what scientists hope will be a nearly 50-year study of the Earth's most important star. Thomas Rimmele, director of the Inouye Solar Telescope said: “To unravel the Sun’s biggest mysteries, we have to not only be able to clearly see these tiny structures from 93 million miles away but very precisely measure their magnetic field strength and direction near the surface and trace the field as it extends out into the million-degree corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun.” The DKIS Telescope boasts a 4-metre mirror providing the sharpest high-resolution images of the Sun. For the next six months, scientists hope to continue working on the telescope to make it ready for use by the international solar science community.
Each of the cell-like structures is about the size of the US state of Texas, and the entire area covered is 11,800 miles by 6,700 miles. The cells are convecting masses of hot, excited gas, or plasma, with bright centres representing hot plasma while the surrounding dark lanes show where the plasma is cooling and sinking below the surface. The image begins what scientists hope will be a nearly 50-year study of the Earth's most important star. Thomas Rimmele, director of the Inouye Solar Telescope said: “To unravel the Sun’s biggest mysteries, we have to not only be able to clearly see these tiny structures from 93 million miles away but very precisely measure their magnetic field strength and direction near the surface and trace the field as it extends out into the million-degree corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun.” The DKIS Telescope boasts a 4-metre mirror providing the sharpest high-resolution images of the Sun. For the next six months, scientists hope to continue working on the telescope to make it ready for use by the international solar science community.
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