Space and Physics
The National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawai'i is the world's largest solar telescope and has already taken some of the highest-resolution images of the Sun. One of its instruments has just taken its first light, and it is going to be a game-changer when it comes to studying our star.
The Visible Tunable Filter (VTF) is the most advanced instrument on the Inouye solar telescope; it was built by the Institut für Sonnenphysik in Germany, and it is the largest spectro-polarimeter in the world.
When you see a rainbow, you are seeing a light spectrum. The light from the Sun is shown in all the colors that make it. In that spectrum, there is an enormous amount of information. The reason why the VTF is a game changer is very simple; in a single observation, about 12 million spectra are recorded. These are then used to estimate the temperature, pressure, velocity, and magnetic field strength at different altitudes in the corona, the solar atmosphere.
All this data allows researchers to track the evolution of solar phenomena within regions of 20,000 to 40,000 kilometers (12,400 to 24,900 miles). These are areas larger than our planet, but they are tiny compared to the Sun, and they are the best we can currently get from Earth. This new instrument will provide insight into solar activity and the danger it poses to us during solar storms.
“When powerful solar storms hit Earth, they impact critical infrastructure across the globe and in space. High-resolution observations of the sun are necessary to improve predictions of such damaging storms,” Carrie Black, NSF program director for the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO), said in a statement. “The NSF Inouye Solar Telescope puts the U.S. at the forefront of worldwide efforts to produce high-resolution solar observations and the Visible Tunable Filter will complete its initial arsenal of scientific instruments.”
Thanks to Inouye, as well as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe – the fastest human-made object in space – and the incredible European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter, we are studying the Sun like never before. The Solar Orbiter has just released the widest high-res image of the Sun to date. Our understanding of the Sun is expanding dramatically.
“The Inouye Solar Telescope was designed to study the underlying physics of the Sun as the driver of space weather. In pursuing this goal, the Inouye is an ideal platform for an unprecedented and pioneering instrument like the VTF,” concluded Christoph Keller, NSO Director.
