Latest news with #NewJerseyInstituteOfTechnology
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Space photo of the week: Pink 'raindrops' on the sun captured in greatest detail ever
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Quick facts What it is: The sun's corona Where it is: The outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere. When it was shared: May 27, 2025 Solar "raindrops" — plasma streams and vast arches extending outward from the sun's surface and into the corona, the outermost part of the solar atmosphere — have been captured in spectacular new detail by a ground-based telescope in California. Among the images taken from time-lapse movies, which utilize new technology to eliminate blurring caused by Earth's atmosphere, is coronal rain, a phenomenon that occurs when cooling plasma condenses and falls back toward the sun's surface along magnetic field lines. Other features imaged include prominences — the term solar physicists use to describe the arches and loops — and finely structured plasma streams. The images are artificially colorized from the hydrogen-alpha light captured by the telescope, making them appear pink. The remarkable images, taken by researchers from the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Solar Observatory and New Jersey Institute of Technology, were published this week in a paper in the journal Nature. "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," Vasyl Yurchyshyn, co-author of the study and a research professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said in a statement. The researchers captured the new images using the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California, equipped with a new technology called Cona, which employs a laser to correct for turbulence in Earth's upper atmosphere. Related: NASA spacecraft snaps eerie image of eclipsed sun with an extra moon overhead. What's going on? Cona is "like a pumped-up autofocus" for the sky, Nicolas Gorceix, chief observer at BBSO, said in the statement. It's a form of adaptive optics that works by measuring, and then adapting in real-time to, atmospheric distortions, reshaping a special mirror 2,200 times per second. Turbulence in Earth's upper atmosphere has always been a limiting factor when studying the sun, but Cona increases the resolution of what can be observed, from features over 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) wide to just 63 km (39 miles). SEE MORE SPACE PHOTOS —Violent galaxies seen 'jousting' near the dawn of time —Cotton candy clouds shine in one of Hubble's most beautiful images ever —Bizarre 1-armed spiral galaxy stuns Hubble scientists The sun's corona, which means crown, is one of the most mysterious places in the solar system. This outer layer of the sun's atmosphere is blocked from view by the brighter photosphere — the sun's surface — and is only visible briefly to the naked eye during a total solar eclipse. That also applies to prominences, which can be seen during totality as reddish-pink arches and loops. Despite its tenuous nature, the corona is millions of degrees hotter than the photosphere. It's of critical interest to solar scientists because it's in the corona that the solar wind originates. This constant stream of charged particles then radiates throughout the solar system, interacting with planetary atmospheres (including Earth's) to cause geomagnetic storms and auroras. Following the successful test of Cona, plans are underway to install it on the 4-meter Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Maui, Hawaii, the world's largest solar telescope.
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.
