A new era of solar science and a leap forward in the understanding of the sun and its impacts on our planet is what the Daniel Inouye Solar Telescope of the NSF (National Science Foundation) of the United States will offer us.
Proof of them are his first images of the surface of the sun , which are already the most detailed images of the Sun that we have obtained to date. The image shows a turbulent "boiling" plasma pattern covering the entire sun.
Daniel Inouye
The Inouye Solar Telescope will be able to measure and characterize the Sun’s magnetic field in more detail than ever before and determine the causes of potentially harmful solar activity. Built by the NSF National Solar Observatory and managed by AURA, it contains a 4-meter mirror, the largest in the world for a solar telescope.
Inouye will thus collect more information about our sun during the first 5 years of its lifespan than all the solar data collected since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the sun in 1612.
In the image, the cell-like structures, each one larger than the Iberian Peninsula , are the signature of violent movements that transport heat from the interior of the sun to its surface.
As France Córdova , director of NSF, explains:
Now we can share these images and videos, which are the most detailed of our sun to date. The Solar Telescope will be able to map the magnetic fields within the sun’s corona, where solar flares occur that can affect life on Earth. The telescope will improve our understanding of what drives space weather and ultimately help forecasters better predict solar storms.
This image is just the beginning . Over the next six months, the Inouye telescope team of scientists, engineers and technicians will continue to test the telescope so that it is ready for use by the international scientific scientific community.