NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array), a telescope used by NASA to spy on black holes, supernovas, and other high-energy objects in space, has captured an opportunity for astronomers to see and understand the high-energy X-rays in the Sun’s corona.
The Big Burning Ball of Yellow
Several of us know basic information about the sun thanks to grade school science classes, and we’d be able to take a general quiz – with stuff like what it’s made of and if we know whether it’s considered a star or not, etc. – and pass it. There are actually still many facts that scientists are learning about the sun. for instance, different parts of the sun rotate at different rates. Have you ever wondered how hot the Sun gets? Its core is about 27 millions degrees Fahrenheit. NASA has a plethora of information on the sun that some of us might not have known before.
The New X-Ray Image From the NuSTAR Telescope
Iain Hannah of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, presented the image Thursday to the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Wales, saying that the sun is “quieting down in its activity cycle, but still has a couple of years before it reaches a minimum.” You can see the image on NASA’s website.
What the NuSTAR Telescope Can Do For Science
Researchers are looking forward to using the NuSTAR telescope’s new images of the sun to approximate where the flares are released from, since the detailed locations are not exactly known. The NuSTAR telescope is extremely sensitive and cannot view the larger flares; however, it can still aid in measuring the energy of micoflares. Scientists are also interested in the fact that it can detect nanoflares, which are a type of flare that could possibly explain why the sun’s atmosphere is much hotter than expected. However, it is possible that the flares might give the same high-energy X-rays that the NuSTAR telescope is too sensitive to detect. Astronomer on the NuSTAR team, Brian Grefenstette, said, “What’s great about NuSTAR is that the telescope is so versatile that we can hunt black holes millions of light-years away and we can also learn something fundamental about the star in our own backyard.”
