Astronomers at the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) have just released the most detailed image of a sunspot to date. This is a photograph taken on January 28 by the David K. Inouye Telescope, the largest and most advanced solar terrestrial observatory in the world. In the image you can see magnetic structures "so small" that they are barely 20 kilometers in diameter, explains Thomas Rimmele, associate director of the NSO in a statement. The first results have just been published in the journal “Solar Physics”.
Although the image of this spot reflects only a small portion of the Sun that is only 16,100 kilometers wide (our star has a radius of 695,993 kilometers), it is large enough that the Earth can easily fit inside it. The dark center, where multiple magnetic fields are concentrated, is actually colder than the brighter spots outside. Still, the temperature of the shaded areas is more than 7,500 degrees Fahrenheit (4,100 degrees Celsius), turning the "cold" area into a hellish area.
"Stripes extending from the dark region toward brighter places indicate patches of hot and cold gas sculpted by the convergence of intense magnetic fields and hot gases boiling from below," explains the NSF.
The image published by the NSF showing a large sunspot in the center and a smaller one just below
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Inouye solar telescope
The danger of solar spots and storms
«Sunspots are the most visible representation of solar activity. “Scientists know that the more spots that are visible on the Sun, the more active our star is,” they explain from the NSF. The star of the Solar System, which has an eleven-year cycle, reached a solar minimum - a time with the fewest solar "patches" - in December 2019, and this spot was one of the first spots of the new cycle, which is expected reach its maximum in mid-2025.
Sunspots are associated with flares and violent eruptions of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These "bombs", which travel at incredible speeds and can cause the dreaded solar storms, have palpable effects on space weather and can also affect the Earth, although our magnetic field acts as an effective "shield" in most cases. . The northern lights are proof of the collisions of these particles "shot" by the Sun, deforming our magnetic defenses.
But, even so, there are times when its influence becomes notable. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century the northern lights were seen in latitudes as strange as Madrid; have caused telegraph interruptions in North America and Europe on several occasions; or turned off the lights on Broadway for hours. The most powerful solar storm ever recorded is known as the Carrington event, discovered by Richard Carrington in 1859. The Earth's magnetic field was completely deformed, allowing the entry of a solar flare that caused immense northern lights and outages in the nascent telegraph network. transoceanic.
"Magnetic fields associated with solar storms can affect power grids, communications, GPS navigation, air travel, satellites, and astronauts in space," the NSF states. At the moment, these solar storms can only be anticipated within a few days, although knowing more about how the Sun works will help humanity predict their effects on our planet more effectively.
An "appetizer" of what is to come
Despite the incredible image, in reality the Inouye Solar Telescope (located on the island of Maui, Hawaii) is still being tested. The NSF states that this photograph is just a small "appetizer" of the shots that will come to us in the coming years (Inouye is scheduled to begin working at full speed at the end of 2021, although his schedule has been delayed by the pandemic of Covid-19), thanks to the telescope's advanced optics, its four-meter diameter primary mirror and the arrival of a new solar cycle with a rebound in activity.
In fact, it is not the first time that the Inouye telescope has offered spectacular images of our star. At the beginning of the year, the highest resolution photograph of the surface of our star to date was made public, where structures similar to cells the size of Texas (a 30% larger than the size of Spain) could be seen erupting and moving above the star. Specifically, in the video you could distinguish the plasma that rose from the depths of the star outward, while the darker edges between the "cells" indicated where this material cools and sinks (structures that also can be seen in the new image).
“With this new solar cycle, we also enter the era of the Inouye Solar Telescope,” says Matt Mountain, president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), the organization that manages NSO and the Inouye Solar Telescope. "We can now point the world's most advanced solar telescope at the Sun to capture and share incredibly detailed images, adding to our scientific knowledge of the Sun's activity."