New Telescope in Hawaii Shows Sun’s Surface Like Never Before
The National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is the world’s most powerful solar telescope and recently captured the most detailed images ever taken of the surface of our sun, according to The New York Times.
Unlike the soft glowing orb stars may appear to be from afar, these new images show “the sun looks like a boiling pot of popcorn.”
These images were taken as part of an initial test of the Inouye telescope, named after late Hawaiian Senator Daniel K. Inouye credited with helping build Hawaii into an astronomical powerhouse, called “first light”. The primary objective of this telescope is to observe the magnetic fields of the sun, and to understand its dynamic behavior. “The Sun’s magnetic fields are the source of solar flares and coronal mass ejections, otherwise known as space weather which can impact Earth and have a negative impact on our technology such as electric and communication networks,” the National Solar Observatory’s website explains.
To further research the sun’s behavior, even NASA is getting involved with the Park Solar Probe as well as a joint NASA-European Space Agency Solar Orbiter. Read more here.
