The solar Saint Elmo’s fire , the outermost part of the Sun , is only seeable with the naked heart during a total solar eclipse . Due to this , astronomers through the decades have had to get creative to study it . The latest invention is a suborbital telescope that was carried into space on a rocket for a flight prison term of a mere 10 minutes . In that brief amount of clip , it managed to seize the eminent resolution figure of speech yet of the solar corona . The findings are report inThe Astrophysical Journal .
The telescope , called the High - Resolution Coronal Imager ( Hi - C ) , has the ability to see details as small as 70 kilometers ( 43 miles ) in size . The squad focalize on the magnetic strands of plasma that populate the corona . The telescope fancy strand as “ thin ” as around 200 kilometre ( 125 mile ) wide , although distinctive width were more around 510 km ( 320 miles ) .
“ Until now solar astronomers have effectively been see our faithful star in ‘ standard definition ’ , whereas the exceptional timber of the information provided by the Hi - C telescope allows us to follow a patch of the Sun in ‘ ultra - high definition ’ for the first clock time , ” Robert Walsh , institutional lead for the Hi - hundred team and professor from the University of Central Lancashire , said in astatement .
This was the third launching of Hi - C , with more plotted for the hereafter . The team will also overlap their observations with NASA ’s Parker Solar Probe andESA ’s Solar Orbiter(SolO ) . The former is already study the Sun and the latter was launched in February .
“ These fresh Hi - C images give us a singular perceptiveness into the Sun ’s atmosphere . Along with ongoing mission such as Probe and SolO , this fleet of space - based instruments in the close future tense will reveal the Sun ’s dynamic out layer in a completely new light , ” Dr Amy Winebarger , Hi - degree centigrade principal researcher at NASA MSFC , explained .
Scientists have yet to fully understand how the Saint Ulmo’s light became so hot . The electric glow has a temperature of millions of degrees , which is puzzling given that the aerofoil of the Sun is around 5,500 ° C ( about 10,000 ° F ) . Hi - C and the other solar missions promise they will gather enough information to solve this mystery once and for all .
