New images of the sun show astonishing details and never before seen

The Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT) of Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife has been working since 1988. In these four decades, it has been doing a great job in studying the sun, but thanks to a new camera, the best is yet to come.

The installation, developed by the Leibniz Institute of Potsdam Astrophysics (AIP), can capture 100 short exhibition images in 4 secondswhich can be combined in an image with 8K resolution.

According to the work, it is at the ideal point between the sight of the full disk of the sun obtained by smaller telescopes and even spaceships around our star, and the closer view than the great solar telescopes have.

These usually have image fields with about 75.000 kms in diameter, while the VTT has 200.000 kmsso that the large -scale structures of the active sun and their behavior are clearer in the context.

“Our expectations about the chamber system were more than satisfied from the beginning,” he said Robert Kamlahwho carried out the project in the context of his doctoral thesis at the AIP and the University of Potsdam.

Thanks to the speed of image capture, the disturbance of the earthly atmosphere is treated and eliminated from the processed final image. The telescope can see details as small as 100 km on the surface of the sun. You can also create timelapses of processes in the sun at the 20 second scale.

“To better understand solar activityit is crucial not only to analyze the fundamental processes of the fine structure and the long -term development of global activity with various instruments, ”he added Rolf Schlichenmaierscientist at the Institute of Solar Physics, “but also to investigate the Temporal evolution of the magnetic field in the active regions ”.

The installation has special filters that allow researchers to see specific layers of the solar “surface” and the lower atmosphere of the sun, designated by photosphere e Chromosphere. Plasma movement in these zones is the basis of the evolution of solar spots, so the new camera allows a high resolution approach to the study of these movements.

“The results obtained show how, together with our partners, we are Teach new tricks to an old telescope”, He added Carsten DenkerHead of the AIP Solar Physics Section.

The VTT is 0.7 meters in diameter. A chamber configuration like the new, in much larger telescopes, can come to even higher resolutions.