Science Current Events | Science News | Brightsurf.com

Search BrightSurf.com

Swedish solar telescope bursts dream barrier

Nov. 18, 2002

The first pictures from the new Swedish solar telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands, are presented in an article in the prestigious science journal Nature from November 14. The images of the sun are the most detailed ever seen. One of the most sensational discoveries is a previously unknown detailed sunspot structure.

The impact of this discovery is now capturing the attention of solar researchers, and it won't be long before new and revised theories are formulated.

The solar telescope was designed and built in Sweden and is run by the Institute for Solar Research at the Royal Academy of Science. It boasts a lens one meter in diameter and is specially constructed to cope with problems of movement in the air and atmosphere, which normally disturb in the image. All air has been pumped out of the telescope tube, and a mirror in the path of light changes shape roughly a thousand times per second to counteract disturbances from the atmosphere. This means that the pictures are the sharpest ever taken of the sun. The resolution would allow the bottom line of eye-test charts to be read from a distance of 3 km.

The new images show narrow dark cores in the threadlike structures surrounding the dark part of a sunspot. The nature of these cores is still unknown. Sunspots are areas with highly concentrated magnetic fields. The sun�s magnetic fields can have a major impact on the function of telecommunications and satellites.

Images and films from the new solar telescope can be downloaded from: http://www.solarphysics.kva.se/NatureNov2002 or http://www.solarphysics.kva.se

Most information there is in both Swedish and English.
© 2010 BrightSurf.com