The difficulty in capturing the Sun’s lower atmosphere, the atmosphere, is great. However, it has now been carried out by the world’s largest solar telescope. Have a look here.
We have seen some pictures and short clips shared by NASA reveal the amazing details of the Sun. But this time, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) in Hawai’i has captured the first detailed image of the Sun’s chromosphere, a layer of the Sun’s atmosphere just above its surface. The image, taken by the telescope on June 3, 2022, shows an area 82,500 km across at a resolution of 18 km.
What is Chromosphere? Similar to the outermost region of the solar atmosphere called the corona, the atmosphere is generally obscured by the star’s photosphere, which is roughly equivalent to the star’s surface. In the picture taken by telescope in total eclipsewhen light from the photosphere is obscured by moon, this region can usually only be detected as a bright red ring around the Sun’s main body. Thanks to the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, this has now changed.
One the main highlights of research to be space weather, bright rays of the sun, and coronal mass ejections from the sun’s surface that shoot matter into space. “NSF’s Inouye Solar Telescope is the world’s most powerful solar telescope that will forever change the way we discover and understand our sun. Its insights will transform the way our nation and planet predict and prepare for events like solar storms,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.
Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST)
On the Hawaiian island of Maui, DKIST is located near the Haleakala Observatory area, an important location. This location provides the telescope with the long daylight hours required for solar telescopes, as well as clean skies free of interference from Earth’s atmosphere, needed to observe the moon. corona and chromosphere of the sun, at an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) and surrounded by ocean.
The largest mirror of any solar device used by DKIST. The telescope collects more sunlight than any previous solar telescope thanks to its 13-foot (4 m) wide mirror. The end result are the clearest and highest resolution pictures of our star ever taken.
