Latest news with #DKIST
Forbes
2 days ago
- General
- Forbes
In Photos: Sharpest-Ever Views Of The Sun's Surface Reveal ‘Stripes'
Scientists using the world's biggest solar telescope in Hawaii have captured the sharpest-ever view of the sun's surface. In doing so, they've identified super-fine 'stripes' and 'magnetic curtains' on the sun for the first time, which could help in understanding how the sun behaves — and how its energetic events can threaten Earth. It comes in the wake of the same telescope's spectacular image of a planet-sized cluster of sunspots covering 241 million square miles of the sun's surface, which was published in April. The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is the world's largest solar telescope, situated atop the 10,000-foot-tall Haleakalā volcano in Hawaii. A 13-foot/four-meter solar ground-based telescope, it's designed to help solar physicists investigate the physics of the sun and how it drives space weather. The ultra-fine magnetic 'stripes' observed by the DKIST are bright and dark striations that appear to be rippling across the sun. The incredible detail reveals curtain-like magnetic fields and a new layer of complexity in the sun's magnetic structure. 'We investigate the fine-scale structure of the solar surface for the first time with an unprecedented spatial resolution of just about 20 kilometers or the length of Manhattan Island,' said Dr. David Kuridze, the lead author of the study, published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and a scientist at the National Solar Observatory. 'These striations are the fingerprints of fine-scale magnetic field variations.' What causes the 'stripes' are magnetic fluctuations, which only DKIST's huge 4-meter mirror can detect. 'Magnetism is a fundamental phenomenon in the universe, and similar magnetically induced stripes have also been observed in more distant astrophysical objects, such as molecular clouds,' said Dr. Han Uitenbroek, co-author of the study and an NSO scientist. A deeper understanding of how magnetism works on the sun is essential if astronomers are to understand the origin of solar flares, eruptions and coronal mass ejections — powerful events that charge up the solar wind and can cause geomagnetic storms around Earth. Approximately 93 million miles from Earth, the sun is a middle-aged star, having existed for approximately five billion years. It burns around five million tons of hydrogen fuel every second. 'This is just one of many firsts for the Inouye, demonstrating how it continues to push the frontier of solar research,' said Dr. David Boboltz, NSO Associate Director for the DKIST. 'It also underscores Inouye's vital role in understanding the small-scale physics that drive space weather events that impact our increasingly technological society here on Earth.' DKIST's stunning 'first light' images showed a close-up view of the sun's surface, revealing turbulent 'boiling' plasma across the entire star. The cell-like structures are violent motions that transport heat from the inside of the sun to its surface. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
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."
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
World's largest solar telescope shows off its full force with new image
The record-breaking Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) has captured another stunningly close look at the surface of our sun. DKIST has collected incredibly detailed images of the sun from its perch on the Haleakalā volcano in Maui since 2022, but the largest observational tool of its kind only managed its latest look thanks to a recent major milestone described as its 'technical first light.' Using its newly installed spectro-polarimeter visible tuner filter (VTF), DKIST has offered a stunningly close look at the sun's surface photosphere featuring a gigantic sunspot. 'The instrument is, so to speak, the heart of the solar telescope, which is now finally beating at its final destination,' VTF project scientist Matthias Schubert said in a statement. VTF's primary goal is to image the sun at the absolute highest spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions possible. Doing so will help experts gain a better understanding of the sun's dynamic and complex behaviors, particularly the powerful particles, solar energy, and stellar radiation it ejects across the solar system. These solar storms routinely produce colorful atmospheric auroras on Earth, but especially intense events can wreak havoc on satellites and global communications systems. Studying the sun's photosphere and chromosphere will allow researchers to examine how plasma flows and shifting magnetic fields interact to trigger surface eruptions. DKIST's VTF is specifically designed to help determine attributes like magnetic field strength, temperature, pressure, and plasma flow velocity. It is a massive addition to what is already a giant observational installation. At around the size of a small garage, the 5.6 ton instrument occupies two floors at the National Solar Observatory. The VTF was developed and constructed at Germany's Institute for Solar Physics over the last 15 years—nearly as long as the time spent on DKIST itself. The painstaking installation process began at the beginning of 2024, and took months of work to complete before it could be utilized for the first time. VTF's first public image also showcases one of our star's ever-changing sunspots, which are linked to comparatively strong magnetic fields that prevent plasma from escaping the star's interior. To record the event, the VTF relied on sunlight with a wavelength of 588.9 nanometers, and also depicts the sunspot's penumbra over a region measuring approximately 15,535-square-miles. 'The Inouye Solar Telescope was designed to study the underlying physics of the Sun as the driver of space weather,' said Christoph Keller, Director of the National Solar Observatory, which is responsible for operating DKIST. 'In pursuing this goal, the Inouye is an ideal platform for an unprecedented and pioneering instrument like the VTF.'
