The Sun Gets Its Close-up: Images from New Solar Telescope

By: Monica Young May 24, 2023 5

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope shows some stunning detail on the Sun, including sunspots, fibrils, granules, and other solar textures.

The National Science Foundation's Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has returned some stunning close-up images of the Sun, including sunspots, fibriles, granules, and all sorts of other solar textures. The eight images below, taken by the Visible-Broadband Imager, are just a preview for the research being done with the new facility.

The Inouye solar telescope, part of Haleakalā Observatory on Maui, Hawai'i, just completed its first year of commissioning science observations in February. During this period, scientists test out and calibrate the instruments while also conducting valuable science. It was operating with only three of its five instruments, though; the fourth was only recently installed, and the fifth should be integrated next year.

The images below capture details in the visible surface of the Sun, known as the photosphere, as well as the hotter chromosphere above it. Convection cells in the boiling plasma — in which hot plasma bubbles up, cools, and sinks again — are visible on the visible surface as granules. Dark strings called fibrils come from magnetic fields that accumulate like a bunches of uncooked spaghetti in the chromosphere.

Sunspots are also visible, with dark centers known as umbras and surrounding brighter areas called penumbras. In sunspots, the magnetic field is strong enough to inhibit gas motions so that the gas actually cools, which is why it appears darker (even though sunspots are still quite hot). Sometimes, almost-spots form, with magnetic fields not quite strong enough to calm gaseous motions; these are called pores.

Fine Structure on the Sun

bright yellow with darker yellow areas through the middle and bottom — This image shows fine, dark threads known as fibrils in the chromosphere. The magnetic fields for the fibrils come from further down, in the photosphere, especially from the dark pores and umbral fragments. The field of view is 30,720km x 30,720km.
*NSF / AURA / NSO; Image Processing: Friedrich Wöger(NSO), Catherine Fischer (NSO) Science Credit: Juan Martínez-Sykora (Bay Area Environmental Research Institute)*

Fibrils

yellow image with darker spots leading down in line formations — Fibrils are ubiquitous in the chromosphere, as seen here. The image also shows outlines of bright structures, which signify the presence of magnetic fields in the photosphere below. This image was captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope during a coordinated observation campaign with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and ESA’s Solar Orbiter. The image captures an area 30,720km x 30,720km.

yellow background with darker yellow in wispy shapes across it — This image, taken by the Inouye Solar Telescope in coordination with ESA’s Solar Orbiter, reveals the fibrils crossing the chromosphere. The image captures an area 30,720km x 30,720km.
*NSF / AURA / NSO*; *Image processing: Friedrich Wöger(NSO), Catherine Fischer (NSO) Science Credit: Public DDT Data*

Granules

yellow and orange image in the shape of rocks or bubbles — On the quiet Sun, images reveal hot plasma rising in bright, convective “bubbles” (granules), before it cools and sinks into the dark, intergranular lanes. Within these lanes, bright structures are observed, indicating that something is happening there with the magnetic field. The image captures an area 30,720km x 30,720km, and the image is taken at a wavelength of 450 nanometers.
*NSF / AURA / NSO; Image processing: Friedrich Wöger(NSO), Catherine Fischer (NSO)*

Sunspots

black background with yellow and around swirls around edges and tendrils reaching across — This image shows a so-called *light bridge* crossing a sunspot’s central umbra. Light bridges are complex structures, and their appearance often signifies that the sunspot will soon decay. The image captures an area 30,720km x 30,720km.
*NSF / AURA / NSO; Image processing: Friedrich Wöger(NSO), Catherine Fischer (NSO) Science Credit: Philip Lindner at Leibniz-Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS)*

yelow image with dark spots and dark lines throughout like rocks or bubbles — A sunspot is identifiable by its dark, central umbra and surrounding filamentary-structured penumbra. A closer look reveals the presence of nearby umbral fragments – essentially, a sunspot that has lost its penumbra. These fragments were previously a part of the neighboring sunspot, suggesting that this may be the “end phase” of the sunspot’s evolution. While this image shows the presence of umbral fragments, it is extraordinarily rare to capture the process of a penumbra forming or decaying. The image captures an area 30,720km x 30,720km.
*NSF / AURA / NSO; Image processing: Friedrich Wöger(NSO), Catherine Fischer (NSO) Science Credit: Jaime de la Cruz Rodriguez (Stockholm University)*

Comments

dwhightowe

May 25, 2023 at 12:09 pm

Thank you for including the wavelength for most of these images. Wavelength is missing from the granules image. Knowing the wavelength of this image would help with understanding the difference between its depiction and the ones before it.
Also, it is always good to include an idication of the scale in astro images. A one arcsec bar is needed here.
Also helpful, but rarely seen in published astro images, is a depiction of the entire acquired image versus the cropped image. We need to see a representation of the entire field of view of the instrument, even if it is just a gray box with a thumbnail of the published crop inside it.
Lastly, no mention of the location of the telescope is made in your article. "at Haleakala on Maui" would have added only four words but would have helped the readers who don't already know this. The detail about instrument commissioning was nice.