Latest news with #CarrieBlack
See - Sada Elbalad
25-04-2025
- Science
- See - Sada Elbalad
World's Largest Solar Telescope Captures New Photo for Solar Activity
Rana Atef On Thursday, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) scientists, which is the world's largest telescope for studying solar activity, developed the Visible Tunable Filter (VTF) to study the solar storms. This camera of VTF's addition "will complete its initial arsenal of scientific instruments," according to Carrie Black, director of the National Solar Observatory. Matthias Schubert, project scientist, explained: "The significance of the technological achievement is such that one could easily argue the VTF is the Inouye Solar Telescope's heart, and it is finally beating at its forever place." The first image from the Inouye telescope's Visible Tunable Filter (VTF) camera shows a sunspot cluster many times larger than North America. It shows a major clump of sunspots, dark blobs on the sun's surface caused by its intense magnetic field. read more UAE's Lunar Mission Delayed to Tomorrow Twitter Lifts Trump's Account Ban Scientists Find Evidence Of 10،000 Black Holes Surrounding The Center Of The Milky Way Galaxy Greenhouse In Antarctica Able To Grow Vegetables Without Soil Or Sunlight Moving Over China: U.S. Is Again Home to World's Speediest Supercomputer Technology The 10 most expensive cars in the world Technology Top 10 fastest cars in the world Technology Lasers Could Make Computers 1 Million Times Faster Technology Smart technology taking control of our lives News Egypt confirms denial of airspace access to US B-52 bombers News Ayat Khaddoura's Final Video Captures Bombardment of Beit Lahia Lifestyle Pistachio and Raspberry Cheesecake Domes Recipe News Australia Fines Telegram $600,000 Over Terrorism, Child Abuse Content Arts & Culture Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's $4.7M LA Home Burglarized Videos & Features Bouchra Dahlab Crowned Miss Arab World 2025 .. Reem Ganzoury Wins Miss Arab Africa Title (VIDEO) Sports Former Al Zamalek Player Ibrahim Shika Passes away after Long Battle with Cancer Sports Neymar Announced for Brazil's Preliminary List for 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers News Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly Inaugurates Two Indian Companies Arts & Culture New Archaeological Discovery from 26th Dynasty Uncovered in Karnak Temple
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
World's largest solar telescope reveals unprecedented photo of the sun
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Weather on Earth can be wild, but it's not the only kind of weather we have to deal with. Space weather — all the winds and particles streaming off the sun — can have major impacts on Earth and human infrastructure. In the worst cases, this can mean dangerous disruption to our power grids and communications satellites. To help us predict these space storms, astronomers have a newly improved space weatherman — and it's the best one to date. The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), perched atop the Hawaiian mountain of Haleakalā, is the world's largest telescope used for studying the sun and predicting these storms. The team behind this technological marvel recently hit a major milestone, finally turning on one of DKIST's most powerful cameras — known as the Visible Tunable Filter, or VTF — after more than a decade working on its creation. This camera is the final piece of the puzzle for DKIST, and the VTF's addition "will complete its initial arsenal of scientific instruments," Carrie Black, director of the National Solar Observatory, said in a statement. "The significance of the technological achievement is such that one could easily argue the VTF is the Inouye Solar Telescope's heart, and it is finally beating at its forever place," Matthias Schubert, project scientist for the VTF, said in the statement. VTF's first image shows a major clump of sunspots, dark blobs on the sun's surface caused by its intense magnetic field, each blob measuring wider than the continental United States. This impressive camera can see details down to a resolution of about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) per pixel on the solar surface — an absolutely wild resolution given that the sun is tens of millions of miles away from us. Related: A mysterious, 100-year solar cycle may have just restarted — and it could mean decades of dangerous space weather VTF provides more than just a simple snapshot. It captures images at multiple wavelengths of light to measure a spectrum, while also gathering information on how the light's electric field is oriented (known as polarization). These extra perspectives on the sun help reveal details of the solar surface, magnetic field and plasma that are otherwise invisible, informing our predictions for space weather and solar flares. During just one observation of the sun, this instrument can collect more than 10 million spectra — graphs of the light's intensity over different wavelengths — which help scientists determine how hot the solar atmosphere is, how strong the sun's magnetic field is and more. RELATED STORIES —Has the sun already passed solar maximum? —NASA's daredevil solar spacecraft survives 2nd close flyby of our sun —Watch eerie 'UFOs' and a solar 'cyclone' take shape in stunning new ESA video of the sun Today's news is only the beginning for the VTF and DKIST. The incredibly complex instrument still requires more testing and set-up, which is expected to be completed by next year. But the newly released first images show great promise for how much we can learn about the sun, our nearest star. These images are "something no other instrument in the telescope can achieve in the same way," said National Solar Observatory optical engineer Stacey Sueoka. "I'm excited to see what's possible as we complete the system."
Forbes
24-04-2025
- Science
- Forbes
See The Jaw-Dropping New Image Of Planet-Sized Spot On The Sun
A narrow-band image of the sun from the Inouye Solar Telescope. Each pixel in the original version ... More of the image corresponds to 6.2 miles 1(0 kilometers) on the sun. The world's largest solar telescope on top of the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii has used a new instrument that took 15 years to build to produce a spectacular first image of the sun. The new test image, above, reveals a cluster of sunspots covering 241 million square miles of the sun's surface, with each pixel representing 6.2 miles (10 kilometers), though the new instrument won't be used regularly for science until next year. It's hoped that it will help solar physicists uncover the underlying physics of the sun and how it drives space weather — which brings northern lights but also threatens infrastructure on Earth, ages satellites and can even harm astronauts. Magnetic disturbances on the sun's surface that can be as big as Earth — as is the case here — sunspots are critical to solar scientists. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections originate in sunspots. Solar flares are intense blasts of radiation that travel at light speed, while CMEs are vast clouds of charged particles that travel more slowly but are a major cause of geomagnetic storms on Earth — which often spark displays of the northern and southern lights. This new image comes from an instrument called the Visible Tunable Filter, which has recently been installed on the U.S. National Science Foundation's Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on Haleakala. The largest of its type, the VTF captures sunlight signals over a narrow range of frequencies, allowing it to map specific phenomena — such as magnetic fields, solar flares and plasma — at new levels of detail. It can scan different wavelengths and take hundreds of images a second using three cameras, combining the data to produce 3D views of the sun. The VTF was built by scientists at the Institute for Solar Physics in Freiburg, Germany. Solar scientists need to understand what causes geomagnetic disturbances on Earth so they can predict them. 'When powerful solar storms hit Earth, they impact critical infrastructure across the globe and in space," said Carrie Black, NSF program director for the NSF National Solar Observatory. "High-resolution observations of the sun are necessary to improve predictions of such damaging storms." It just so happens that VTF is being debuted just as the sun reaches "solar maximum," the peak of the 11-year solar cycle when its magnetic activity intensifies. It's thought that the solar maximum occurred in October 2024, according to scientists at NOAA and NASA, though the tail of the peak can often bring with it intense magnetic activity. Sunspots on the solar surface — which can be seen by anyone using a pair of solar eclipse glasses — are counted each day by solar scientists, with the number of sunspots indicating how magnetically active the sun is. It's hoped that that with the VTF, the Inouye Solar Telescope will be able to precisely study the regions of the sun where solar flares and CMEs come from, and allow them to unpick the complex interaction of hot plasma flows and changing magnetic fields. 'VTF enables images of unprecedented quality and thus heralds a new era in ground-based solar observation,' said Sami K. Solanki, director at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen,Germany. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Indianapolis Star
23-04-2025
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
IndyGo's Purple Line jumps to No. 1 in monthly ridership as Red Line, other routes falter
AI-assisted summary IndyGo's Purple Line has become its most popular route, surpassing the Red Line in ridership since its October launch. While the Purple Line's ridership has increased, the Red Line and Route 8 have seen declines since Nov. 1. A 2022 rider survey revealed that 57% of IndyGo riders do not own a vehicle and have a household income below $25,000. In the Purple Line's first full month of operation this past November, the new bus rapid transit line quickly established itself as IndyGo 's No. 1 route. The margin by which Purple Line ridership outpaces that of the Red Line — IndyGo's first BRT service and No. 2 route — has only widened since then. Purple Line trips increased to a peak of 102,462 in March, roughly 21,000 more trips than IndyGo reported that month on the Red Line, which travels the same route for 13 stops between downtown and 38th Street. When it comes to ridership, the Purple Line seems to be not just outperforming but stealing from the Red Line. Ridership on the older line, which opened in September 2019, has been 18-25% lower year-over-year in each month since the Purple Line debuted Oct. 13. In March 2024, the Red Line was IndyGo's only route that surpassed 100,000 monthly trips, reporting 101,940. Last month, however, the Red Line reported just 81,087 trips — a 20% reduction from last year. IndyGo officials expected that the Purple Line could siphon off some Red Line riders. Each BRT line arrives every 15-20 minutes at the same stations between the Julia Carson Transit Center downtown to the 38th and Park Street stop, so riders traveling within that area can board whichever bus comes first. At 38th and Park, the routes diverge as the Purple Line continues east to Lawrence while the Red Line heads north to Broad Ripple. The 15.2-mile Purple Line is also 2.1 miles longer and travels past more residents overall, including dense lower-income neighborhoods on Indy's northeast side, so its robust ridership makes sense. IndyGo built the Red Line first, however, because the 13.1-mile corridor from Broad Ripple to the University of Indianapolis boasts the city's densest concentration of people, jobs and low-income households. Nearly 150,000 jobs and more than 50,000 residents are within walking distance of the Red Line, while the Purple Line glides past nearly 135,000 jobs and the homes of more than 58,000 residents, according to IndyGo. IndyGo leaders aren't worried that the Purple Line's ridership has surged ahead of the Red Line's, Chief Public Information Officer Carrie Black said. They expect to see more fluctuation between the two routes moving forward. "Those two routes are doing exactly what they were designed to do," Black told IndyStar, "and that is to move people faster through the densest parts of our city." Despite lower numbers to end 2024, the Red Line reported an annual high of 1,174,023 trips, a 7% increase from 2023 ridership. The Red Line is not alone in its decline since the Purple Line began running. IndyGo's No. 3 service, Route 8 (the future Blue Line), has reported between 10,000-20,000 fewer trips a month since Nov. 1, along with a number of smaller routes reporting declines. IndyGo's overall ridership during those five months, buoyed by the Purple Line, is only 1.4% lower. Ridership on Route 8, which follows a different east-west path along Washington Street than the Purple Line's 38th Street route, had been mostly trending upward until Nov. 1, when year-over-year ridership declined by nearly 23,000 trips over the following two months. Route 8's 2024 ridership was about 20,000 trips short of the previous year's total, finishing at 1,073,880. Black said there's no specific reason IndyGo can point to for Route 8's year-over-year decline. Ridership fluctuates based on several factors including construction, seasonal events, employment situations and the weather. She noted that a major detour on Route 8 between Tibbs Avenue and Holt Road could also be deterring riders. "Ridership is unfortunately not a perfect system and a perfect story," Black said. "Sometimes ridership will drop and then it will shoot back up, and we don't always know why." Red Line trips increase in 2024 as overall IndyGo ridership rebounds Since opening in 2019, Red Line ridership has grown in every year except 2021, when the first full year of pandemic restrictions worsened a worldwide decline in public transit ridership. IndyGo's total trips plummeted from 9.2 million in 2019 to just above 5 million in 2021. IndyGo has boosted ridership gradually in each year since. The 2024 total of more than 6.9 million rides is the largest volume recorded since 2019. "People went back to work," Black said of the past few years. "Companies basically ordered their employees to return to the office and the workplace, and thus our ridership continued to rebound." IndyGo expects ridership to keep rising with the construction of the Blue Line, which will replace Route 8 and run from the Indianapolis International Airport to Cumberland. Work began this year and will finish sometime in 2028. The 24-mile route is the longest and most expensive of IndyGo's BRT routes, at an estimated $387 million. The 15.2-mile Purple Line's budget was $188 million while the 13-mile Red Line cost about $96.3 million. Who's riding the Purple and Red Lines? Despite what the numbers show, for many IndyGo riders there's little distinction between the Purple and Red Lines. Most riders leaving downtown Monday afternoon were heading home from work. Others said they were using the Purple Line to travel to night shifts along 38th Street or to exercise at the gym. Afrida Alma Aditi, 30, said that since moving to Indianapolis last June to work at an architecture firm on Monument Circle, she's been riding the Purple and Red lines downtown almost every weekday from her north side apartment near The Children's Museum on 30th Street. A Bangladesh native who earned a graduate degree in Ohio, Aditi said she grew up relying on public transit and has made her way in the Midwest without a car or driver's license. She deliberately chose to rent an apartment near the Red Line last summer, and her life got easier in October when the Purple Line started running. "When it was just the Red Line, I had to check the bus times more often. If I missed one, I had to wait for a long time," Aditi said. "Now, even if I miss one, there's another one just after that." Charles Samuelson, a 39-year-old state employee who lives near the Fall Creek and Meridian stop, said he sold his car soon after the Red Line opened in 2019, happy not to worry anymore about budgeting for gas or car insurance. Usually he rides his bicycle a few miles to work, but on windy or rainy days he takes the bus. Aside from the occasional belligerent passenger, Samuelson said, he's enjoyed the BRT lines for their easy access to grocery stores, libraries and entertainment districts like Broad Ripple. What IndyGo survey shows about riders IndyGo's last comprehensive rider survey in 2022, before the Purple Line opened, found that 57% of riders say their household lacks a vehicle. That same percentage of riders report household incomes below $25,000 a year. Nearly three in four IndyGo riders say they're employed, including 17% who work part-time. Red Line riders tend to be younger and more affluent than the typical IndyGo rider. They're two times as likely to report an annual household income of more than $60,000. About 27% are between 24 and 34 years old.
