New ground-based images of the Sun’s surface
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken using the Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii. It shows the granule surface of the Sun at very high resolution, resolving objects as small as 12 miles across.
The team used the Inouye’s Visible Broadband Imager (VBI) instrument operating in the G-band, a specific range of visible light especially useful for studying the Sun because it highlights areas with strong magnetic activity, making features like sunspots and fine-scale structures like the ones in the study easier to see. The setup allows researchers to observe the solar photosphere at an impressive spatial resolution better than 0.03 arcseconds (i.e., about 20 kilometers on the Sun). This is the sharpest ever achieved in solar astronomy.
The scientists then used computer simulations to confirm that the smallest features, curtains of plasma raising along the walls of the granules, are linked to fluctuations in the Sun’s magnetic field.
As interesting and cutting edge this research is, the language of the press release seems more aimed at touting this telescope then describing new science. Practically every sentence uses words like “unmatched,” “unparalleled,” “unique,” and “unprecedented” (multiple times), and then ended with this quote:
“This is just one of many firsts for the Inouye, demonstrating how it continues to push the of solar research,” says NSO [National Solar Observatory] Associate Director for the NSF [National Science Foundation’s] Inouye Solar Telescope, Dr. David Boboltz. “It also underscores Inouye’s vital role in understanding the small-scale physics that drive space weather events that impact our increasingly technological society here on Earth.”
I have noticed this phenomenon recently in many government press releases. It appears that the releases issued in the past month have become less about real research and are more designed to lobby the public against any possible budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken using the Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii. It shows the granule surface of the Sun at very high resolution, resolving objects as small as 12 miles across.
The team used the Inouye’s Visible Broadband Imager (VBI) instrument operating in the G-band, a specific range of visible light especially useful for studying the Sun because it highlights areas with strong magnetic activity, making features like sunspots and fine-scale structures like the ones in the study easier to see. The setup allows researchers to observe the solar photosphere at an impressive spatial resolution better than 0.03 arcseconds (i.e., about 20 kilometers on the Sun). This is the sharpest ever achieved in solar astronomy.
The scientists then used computer simulations to confirm that the smallest features, curtains of plasma raising along the walls of the granules, are linked to fluctuations in the Sun’s magnetic field.
As interesting and cutting edge this research is, the language of the press release seems more aimed at touting this telescope then describing new science. Practically every sentence uses words like “unmatched,” “unparalleled,” “unique,” and “unprecedented” (multiple times), and then ended with this quote:
“This is just one of many firsts for the Inouye, demonstrating how it continues to push the of solar research,” says NSO [National Solar Observatory] Associate Director for the NSF [National Science Foundation’s] Inouye Solar Telescope, Dr. David Boboltz. “It also underscores Inouye’s vital role in understanding the small-scale physics that drive space weather events that impact our increasingly technological society here on Earth.”
I have noticed this phenomenon recently in many government press releases. It appears that the releases issued in the past month have become less about real research and are more designed to lobby the public against any possible budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It looks almost like asphalt. But I bet it gets even hotter than asphalt does around here in July.
It does look like asphalt – asphalt that is old and in need of replacement.
The inset blowup, though, looks more like blistered skin – how appropriate.
Robert,
You wrote: “… curtains of plasma raising along the walls of the granules, …”
From my days in a solar astrophysics lab: the convection works the other way, up in the middle and back down again at the darker side walls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_granule
The rising part of each granule is located in the center, where the plasma is hotter. The outer edges of the granules are darker due to cooler descending plasma.
My recollection is that was in the 1990s that we started getting the resolution to make out these convection cells.
Although this news release announces “a new study shedding light on the fine-scale structure of the Sun’s surface” using “the unparalleled power” of their telescope, it seems to be merely bragging about the much higher resolution that this telescope gets over the good old days. You may be right that it is intended to let everyone know that their telescope is not the obsolete one and that some other telescope should lose its funding instead, since they are obviously on the verge of new and exciting science that has never before been seen.
Of course, wouldn’t it be nice if some science-minded philanthropists were to fund such observatories, then the telescope could be named after the philanthropists who supplied the funding rather than named after the senators who pork-barreled the funding.
Looks like Godzilla’s hide.
Edward: I wasn’t using “raising” to describe the curtains as moving upward. I used it (though clearly vaguely) as describing the curtain’s position above the granules.