Telescope reveals most detailed images of the Sun

The largest telescope in the world, which was built by a team involving UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory engineers and scientists, has captured the clearest and most detailed images of the Sun. The first images and videos from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope reveal unprecedented detail of the Sun's surface, with experts saying it will enable a new era of solar science and a leap forward in understanding the Sun and its impacts on our planet. The new images from NSF's Inouye Solar Telescope 4-meter solar telescope, which sits near the summit of Haleakal? in Hawai'i, show a close-up view of the Sun's surface including a pattern of turbulent 'boiling plasma that covers the entire Sun. The images also show cell-like structures - each about the size of Texas - that are signatures of violent motions, which transport heat from inside the Sun to its surface. Professor Sarah Matthews (UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory), said: "The new images will help us study the Sun's atmosphere in extraordinary levels of detail. In addition to working on ground-based telescopes, my team co-led the development of the EUV imaging telescope (EUI) on board the Solar Orbiter mission, which is due to launch from Cape Canaveral next month, to study the Sun up close. We hope our instrument will provide images of the hotter layers of the Sun's chromosphere and corona that, together with the images captured from NSF's Inouye Solar Telescope, will open up a new era in Solar Physics." The new images were taken with cameras developed and supplied to the project by a UK consortium which is led by Queen's University Belfast.