VTF/KIS/NSF/NSO/AURA
The largest solar telescope named Daniel Inouye, located in Hawaii, took incredibly clear images of a spot on the Sun, which is 25 thousand kilometers wide and long.
The Inouye telescope is located atop the Hawaiian volcano Haleakala. With the help of four-meter mirror, it is capable of making detailed images of the solar surface, capturing the smallest structures.
The instruments decompose the incoming sunlight by analyzing individual wavelengths and polarization state. The telescope has now received a new tool for studying key issues related to the processes that occur on the surface of our parent star — the largest in the world spectropolarimeter
This one The spectropolarimeter weighs 5.6 tons and is the size of a small garage. The device, called the Visible Tunable Filtergraph (VTF), is designed to study areas on the Sun where flares and plasma eruptions occur with the highest level of detail. We are talking about the visible surface of the Sun (photosphere) and the invisible layer of the solar atmosphere (chromosphere). The spectropolarimeter takes pictures of the Sun at several wavelengths of light to measure the spectrum and also collects information about the orientation of the electric field of light (polarization). The VTF is capable of taking hundreds of images per second.
The first observations focused on sunlight with a wavelength of 588.9 nm. This first detailed look revealed a dark sunspot and a region surrounding it known as the penumbra. The area of this spot is an impressive 625 million square kilometers, which is larger than the Earth’s area of 510 million square kilometers. VTF is able to see details on the Sun with a resolution of up to 10 km per pixel, which is incredible given the distance from the Earth to the Sun, which is 150 million square kilometers.
According to the scientists, in the future, image processing will be able to significantly increase the sharpness of images in order to see the smallest structures. Scientists say that the new data will help reveal the complex interaction between hot plasma and the Sun’s magnetic fields, which cause flares and plasma eruptions.
The key to predicting powerful events such as solar flares lies in understanding the complex interactions between hot plasma and changing magnetic fields. VTF is powered by two incredibly accurate Fabry-Perot interferometers. This allows him to filter incredibly narrow slices of visible sunlight with an accuracy of just a few picometers.
The spectropolarimeter is able to decipher properties of the solar structure, such as plasma flow rates, magnetic field strength, pressure, and temperature. This is essential for understanding the fundamental processes that govern solar activity.
Source: Interesting Engineering