The Sun in its highest definition yet
The sun, or Sol as it prefers to be called, it a pretty damned amazing ball exploding stuff. Now, thanks to a new telescope that goes by the catchy moniker of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (or even catchier DKIST), we can now see Sol in ever more impressive detail. The image at the top might look like a strangely tasty caramel-based desert but it is in fact the closest closeup of the sun that has ever been seen. In fact it is five times better than any picture taken by the next best telescope.
The telescope is so shiny and new that it isn’t even fully operational yet. When it is, it will be the start of a 44-year project taking in two full solar cycles (each cycle is 22 years, just in case you are really awful at maths). When completed it should give some answers about things like solar winds and why the corona is so damned hot.
The bright bits are plasma rising to the top and the dark bits are where they are sinking down. Which is fairly interesting. To put things in scale, each cell is larger than France. Which is fascinating but also weird as things are usually measured in comparison to Texas (see below). Or Wales. Or football fields.
This is all pretty darned fascinating and only the start. Until we are mining on the moon or set foot on Mars, it should be something to keep an interested eye on. Or the James Webb telescope, but that keeps getting delayed. As people often prefer pictures, here is an info-graphic that thankfully compares things to Texas. After that is a video that condenses 10 minutes of the sun’s turbulence into a more user friendly 14 seconds. Enjoy and remember to not look directly at the actual sun. Or do, if you want, I don’t care, I’m not your mother.
Here are some links for more info:
