Using the “Ni-STAR”, the first space telescope to use direct imaging of X-rays, NASA captured X-rays emitted by the hottest material in our star’s atmosphere.
High-energy X-rays were observed in only a few locations, while lower-energy X-rays and ultraviolet light were detected across the entire face of the gas sphere.
Perhaps these new images will help scientists solve one of the sun’s biggest mysteries: why is its outer atmosphere hotter than a million degrees, at least about 100 times hotter than the surface?
Ni Star usually spends its time investigating the mysteries of black holes, supernovae and other high-energy objects in space, but it can also search around to study our sun.
The high-energy X-rays seen by Ne-STAR are shown in blue, while the low-energy X-rays from the X-ray telescope instrument on the INNOD spacecraft, named after the Japanese word for sunrise, are green.
Red colors show ultraviolet radiation from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
And “Ni-Star” collected 25 images of the sun last June, which allowed NASA to compile them into one image that shows different colored lights emanating from the surface.
NASA also collected observations from the JAXA’s INOD mission, which is shown in green, and the Heliodynamics Observatory, which captured ultraviolet light, in red.
While astronomers are baffled by the source of the heat of the corona, the sun’s outermost layer, they speculate that it could come from small volcanic eruptions in the sun’s atmosphere called nanoflares.
These flares are large bursts of heat, light and particles that are visible to a wide variety of solar observatories.
While nanoflares are much smaller events, both types produce material hotter than the average temperature of the corona.
NASA said in a statement that regular flares are not frequent enough to keep the corona at the high temperatures that scientists observe, but nanoflares may occur more frequently, perhaps often enough to collectively heat the corona.
More about “Nee Star”
Ni-STAR was launched on June 13, 2012, on a small exploration mission led by Caltasch in Pasadena, California, managed by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, and developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University (DTU) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). .
