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NASA’s NuSTAR takes dramatic X-Ray pictures of the Sun

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NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array NuSTAR was initially designed to observe distant galaxies searching for Black Holes, but NASA has recently been employing the telescope at the Sun in order to take close up pictures of our home star’s atmosphere.

Fiona Harrison who is the principal investigator for NuSTAR at California Institute of Technology CALTECH has stated: “At first I thought the whole idea was crazy; why would, we look into our own backyard with the most sensitive high energy X-ray telescope ever built which was in reality designed to look deep into the universe.”
After years of convincing, Harrison eventually gave the nod to use NuSTAR to look up into the decades old riddle that why the atmospheric temperature of our Sun is so odd?

The corona of our Sun has a very high temperature of about 1 million degrees Celsius as compared to the actual surface which is relatively quite cooler at 6,000 degrees Celsius. This is a serious disparity and one that has confused researchers for many decades.

David Smith who is a solar physicist and also a member of the NuSTAR team at University of California in Santa Cruz stated: “NuSTAR shall provide us the opportunity to look at the Sun from an entirely different perspective and we would be able to gaze from the deepest to the highest parts of its atmosphere. NuSTAR is quite unique in its operational activity and we would be able to see even the faintest X-Ray activity occurring in the solar atmosphere of the Sun.”

NASA’s NuSTAR Captures Most Delicate Pictures Of Our Sun

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NASA’s NuSTAR has enjoyed a reprieve from peering into the far-away Universe and utilized its high-energy X-rays to snap the most delicate and shocking pictures of our Sun to date, putting any Christmas shows on Earth to disgrace.

The NuSTAR, or Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, mission was sent into space in 2012, intended to recognize black holes and other space articles found outside our earth’s planetary group. So why would researchers utilize the most delicate high-energy X-ray telescope ever constructed to take a picture of the Sun? Well, the Sun may be well-studied on and near and dear, generally talking, yet it still has its coverts.

Moreover, NuSTAR, which can manage the strong intensity of the Sun without being harmed, contrasting to various other telescopes, may be the way to opening some of those mysteries. For instance, specialists expect to increase understanding into the amazingly high temperatures found above sunspots – cool, dark patches on the Sun.

However, maybe most charming is the thing that they may find out nanoflares – little versions of the Sun’s monster flares that emit with charged particles and high-energy radiation. Nanoflares are just a theoretical thought, however if they do certainly exist, they may help clarify the “coronal warming issue.” The corona, or the Sun’s external environment, on average is 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius), while the surface of the Sun is “just” 10,800 Fahrenheit (6,000 Celsius). The scorching hot corona contrasted with the generally cooler surface has been a long-standing riddle among researchers, and NuSTAR could help figure out if nanoflares are the cause of this severe heat.

“NuSTAR will provide us an exclusive gaze at the Sun, from the deepest to the most astounding parts of its environment,” David Smith, a solar physicist and part of the NuSTAR group at University of California, Santa Cruz, said in an announcement.

Additionally, the telescope’s accurate X-rays may have the capacity to spot another hypothetical riddle – dark matter. Particularly, the dark matter particles called axions, which would show up as a spot of X-rays in the heart of the Sun.

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