Latest news with #GoodeSolarTelescope
NDTV
a day ago
- Science
- NDTV
Sharpest Solar Images Ever: Pink 'Raindrops' On The Sun Captured In Unprecedented Detail
Advanced ground-based telescopes use adaptive optics (AO) to produce sharp images by correcting atmospheric distortion, capturing stunning views of planets, stars, and celestial objects. Recently, a team at the National Solar Observatory applied AO technology to study the Sun's corona in remarkable detail, as per Science Alert. The corona, the Sun's outermost layer, stretches millions of kilometres into space and is mysteriously hotter than the underlying photosphere, a phenomenon known as the 'coronal heating problem.' This region is governed by powerful magnetic fields and is the source of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which can interact with Earth's magnetosphere, triggering auroras and geomagnetic storms. Observing the Sun's corona is challenging due to its dimness compared to the Sun's surface. Typically, it's visible during total solar eclipses or through space-based coronagraphs that mimic an eclipse. However, researchers have now used Adaptive Optics (AO) to study the corona from Earth. AO employs computer-controlled, deformable mirrors to counteract atmospheric interference, producing clear images. A team from the National Solar Observatory and the New Jersey Institute of Technology developed an AO system for the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope, enabling precise observations of the corona's fine structure. "Resolving fine structures in the Sun's corona may provide key insights into rapid eruptions and the heating of the corona," the authors write in their research article. Here we present observations with coronal adaptive optics reaching the diffraction limit of a 1.6-m telescope to reveal very fine coronal details," the authors wrote in a paper titled Observations of fine coronal structures with high-order solar adaptive optics. Solar prominences, loops, and rain are all composed of plasma, and understanding these phenomena requires observing their fine details. Key questions remain unanswered, such as how plasma in the corona is heated to millions of kelvins when the Sun's surface is only 6,000 K, and what triggers eruptions. "The turbulence in the air severely degrades images of objects in space, like our Sun, seen through our telescopes. But we can correct for that. It is super exciting to build an instrument that shows us the Sun like never before," Dirk Schmidt, NSO Adaptive Optics Scientist, who led the development, said in a press release. This video captures a dynamic prominence featuring a large-scale twist and cascading coronal rain. Coronal rain occurs when strands of coronal plasma cool and descend back to the Sun's surface. "Raindrops in the Sun's corona can be narrower than 20 kilometres. These findings offer new, invaluable observational insight that is vital to test computer models of coronal processes," said NSO Astronomer Thomas Schad. " Another video displays a dense, cool quiescent prominence with intricate internal flows. The next video showcases post-flare coronal rain, where plasma strands, guided by the Sun's magnetic field lines, cascade along curved paths rather than straight lines. These images, captured at the highest resolution ever achieved, reveal unprecedented details of this phenomenon. Solar telescopes using adaptive optics (AO) have historically detailed the Sun's surface with 1,000 km precision but struggled to image the corona. The new coronal AO system, developed with contributions from NSO Chief Technologist Thomas Rimmele, achieves 63 km resolution, the theoretical limit of the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope. Described as transformative by NJIT's Philip Goode, this technology enhances resolution tenfold, revolutionising solar science. "With coronal adaptive optics now in operation, this marks the beginning of a new era in solar physics, promising many more discoveries in the years and decades to come," said Mr Goode.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
New Imaging Technique Makes the Sun Look Like a Swirling Pink Liquid
A swirling sea of pink, where fluffy tufts float majestically upward, while elsewhere violet plumes rain down from above. This is the Sun as seen in groundbreaking new images — and they're unlike anything you've ever laid eyes on. As detailed in a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists have leveraged new coronal adaptive optics tech to bypass the blurriness caused by the turbulence of the Earth's atmosphere, a time-old obstacle that's frustrated astronomers' attempts to see features on our home star at a resolution better than 620 miles. Now, they've gotten it down to just under 40 miles — a light year sized leap. The result is some of the clearest images to date of the fine structures that make up the Sun's formidable corona, the outermost layer of its atmosphere known for its unbelievable temperatures and violent, unpredictable outbursts. The authors are optimistic that their blur-bypassing techniques will be a game-changer. "These are by far the most detailed observations of this kind, showing features not previously observed, and it's not quite clear what they are," coauthor Vasyl Yurchyshyn, a research professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Center for Terrestrial Research (CSTR), said in a statement about the work. "It is super exciting to build an instrument that shows us the Sun like never before," echoed lead author Dirk Schmidt, an adaptive optics scientist at the US National Solar Observatory. Stretching for millions of miles into space, the corona is the staging ground for the Sun's violent outbursts, which range from solar storms, to solar flares, to coronal mass ejections. One reason scientists are interested in these phenomena is because they continue to batter our own planet's atmosphere, playing a significant role in the Earth's climate and wreaking havoc on our electronics. Then, at a reach totally beyond our very limited human purview, is the corona's mighty solar wind, which sweeps across the entire solar system, shielding it from cosmic rays. But astronomers are still trying to understand how these solar phenomena occur. One abiding mystery is why the corona can reach temperatures in the millions of degrees Fahrenheit, when the Sun's surface it sits thousands of miles above is no more than a relatively cool 10,000 degrees. The conundrum even has a name: the coronal heating problem. The level of detailed captured in the latest images, taken with an adaptive optics system installed on the Goode Solar Telescope at the CSTR, could be transformative in probing these mysteries. One type of feature the unprecedented resolution revealed were solar prominences, which are large, flashy structures that protrude from the sun's surface, found in twisty shapes like arches or loops. A spectacular video shows a solar prominence swirling like a tortured water spout as it's whipped around by the sun's magnetic field. Most awe-inspiring of all are the examples of what's known as coronal rain. Appearing like waterfalls suspended in midair, the phenomenon is caused as plasma cools and condenses into huge globs before crashing down to the sun's surface. These were imaged at a scale smaller than 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles. In solar terms, that's pinpoint accuracy. "With coronal adaptive optics now in operation, this marks the beginning of a new era in solar physics, promising many more discoveries in the years and decades to come," said coauthor Philip R. Goode at the CSTR in a statement. More on our solar system: Scientists Detect Mysterious Object in Deep Solar System
Gizmodo
6 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
Telescope Upgrade Reveals Sun's ‘Coronal Rain' in Unprecedented Detail
A powerful new optics system has captured the clearest view yet of the Sun's corona, revealing stunning plasma structures. The Sun's outer atmosphere—the corona—is the piping hot outer limit of our star, and is usually hidden from view except during rare total eclipses. Now, scientists have gotten their clearest look ever at this mysterious region, thanks to a new adaptive optics system that scrubs away atmospheric blur, revealing fine views of the wispy plasma on the star's surface. Researchers from the National Solar Observatory and New Jersey Institute of Technology unveiled the system today, along with dazzling new images and videos of the Sun's corona. The findings, published in Nature Astronomy, show fine-scale structures in solar prominences, short-lived plasma jets called spicules, and even coronal rain: cooling plasma that falls back to the solar surface along the star's magnetic field lines. The team's imaging breakthrough hinges on a technology called coronal adaptive optics. Installed on the 5.25-foot (1.6-meter) Goode Solar Telescope in California, the new system—nicknamed 'Cona'—adjusts a mirror 2,200 times per second to correct for distortions caused by the churn of Earth's atmosphere. The remarkable technology counterbalances any would-be wobble in the telescope, thereby producing particularly sharp images of the corona. 'This technological advancement is a game-changer,' said Dirk Schmidt, an adaptive optics scientist at NSO and the study's lead author, in an observatory release. 'There is a lot to discover when you boost your resolution by a factor of 10.' Until now, solar telescopes have used adaptive optics mainly to study the Sun's surface, the release stated. Observing the fainter corona has remained a challenge, with coronal features blurred to scales of 621 miles (1,000 kilometers)—a limit that's existed for 80 years. But Cona now resolves features down to just 39 miles (63 km), the theoretical limit of the Goode telescope. Among the new footage captured by the team are shots of a twisting solar prominence reshaping in real time, spicules flickering on the surface, and fine, hair-like strands of coronal rain narrower than 12.5 miles (20 km). When you consider how far the Sun is from Earth, how faint the corona is relative to the rest of the star, and how much of Earth's turbulent atmosphere the team had to cut through and correct for, the sharpness of the images is a triumph. 'This transformative technology, which is likely to be adopted at observatories world-wide, is poised to reshape ground-based solar astronomy,' said study co-author Philip Goode, a physicist at NJIT-CSTR, in the same release. 'With coronal adaptive optics now in operation, this marks the beginning of a new era in solar physics, promising many more discoveries in the years and decades to come.' The observations offer crucial data for unraveling enduring solar mysteries—like why the corona is millions of degrees hotter than the solar surface. The team plans to bring the coronal adaptive optics technology to the 13-foot (4-meter) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaiʻi—potentially revealing even smaller details of the Sun's atmosphere.
