The image is the first taken by the US National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope’s new Visible Tunable Filter, or VTF.
The instrument can build a closer-than-ever, three-dimensional view of what’s happening on the sun’s surface, according to a news release, according to Press TV.
The close-up reveals a cluster of continent-size dark sunspots near the center of the sun’s inner atmosphere, at a scale of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) per pixel.
These blemishes mark areas of intense magnetic activity, where solar flares and coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are likely to occur. Coronal mass ejections are large clouds of ionized gas called plasma and magnetic fields that erupt from the sun’s outer atmosphere.
Detailed images such as this one, which was taken in early December, pose an important way for scientists to learn about and predict potentially dangerous solar weather, said Friedrich Woeger, the NSF Inouye Solar Telescope instrument program scientist, in an email.
“A solar storm in the 1800s (the Carrington Event) reportedly was so energetic that it caused fires in telegraph stations,” Woeger said. “We need to understand the physical drivers of these phenomena and how they can affect our technology and ultimately our lives.”
MNA
