Skip to main content

Astronomers Capture the Highest-Resolution Photo of the Sun Ever Taken

Iwastheone shares a report from MIT Technology Review: Astronomers have just released the highest-resolution image of the sun. Taken by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Maui, it gives us an unprecedented view of our nearest star and brings us closer to solving several long-standing mysteries. The new image demonstrates the telescope's potential power. It shows off a surface that's divided up into discrete, Texas-size cells, like cracked sections in the desert soil. You can see plasma oozing off the surface, rising into the air before sinking back into darker lanes.

"We have now seen the smallest details on the largest object in our solar system," says Thomas Rimmele, the director of DKIST. The new image was taken December 10, when the telescope achieved first light. It is still technically under construction, with three more instruments set to come online. When formal observations begin in July, DKIST, with its 13-foot mirror, will be the most powerful solar telescope in the world. Located on Haleakala (the tallest summit on Maui), the telescope will be able to observe structures on the surface of the sun as small as 18.5 miles (30 kilometers). This resolution is over five times better than that of DKIST's predecessor, the Richard B. Dunn Solar Telescope in New Mexico.



from Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters https://ift.tt/37EAdoO
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Mode vs. Light Mode: Which Is Better?

Recently a well-respected UI consulting firm (the Nielsen Norman Group) published their analysis of academic studies on the question of whether Dark Mode or Light Mode was better for reading? Cosima Piepenbrock and her colleagues at the Institut für Experimentelle Psychologie in Düsseldorf, Germany studied two groups of adults with normal (or corrected-to-normal) vision: young adults (18 to 33 years old) and older adults (60 to 85 years old). None of the participants suffered from any eye diseases (e.g., cataract)... Their results showed that light mode won across all dimensions : irrespective of age, the positive contrast polarity was better for both visual-acuity tasks and for proofreading tasks... Another study, published in the journal Human Factors by the same research group, looked at how text size interacts with contrast polarity in a proofreading task. It found that the positive-polarity advantage increased linearly as the font size was decreased: namely, the smaller the fon...

Hate Those Robocalls? This Service Lets You Sue Them for Up to $3,000 Per Annoying Call

2 hrs ago Save News 2 hrs ago News 2 hrs ago News Hate Those Robocalls? This Service Lets You Sue Them for Up to $3,000 Per Annoying Call Jody Serrano Save Until now, the majority of us might have simply hung up on robocallers. However, there’s now a way to get back at the companies who torment you with endless robocalls that ask you for your information or try to sell you stuff. The solution is called Robo Revenge, a service that lets you sue the unwanted caller for up… from Gizmodo | We come from the future https://ift.tt/2vzIYCv via IFTTT

'Sonic the Hedgehog' Has Biggest-Ever Opening For a Video Game Adaptation

An anonymous reader quotes The Wrap: "Sonic the Hedgehog" is giving Paramount its best box office news in over a year, with a currently 3-day opening weekend of $55 million to become the best opening weekend ever for a video game adaptation ... The delayed release of this film prompted by an intense rejection of Sonic's initial design is turning out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. Moved from last November to this extended Presidents' Day weekend, "Sonic" is standing out in the movie marketplace as a popular family offering with no major competition currently in theaters and none coming until Pixar's "Onward" arrives in three weeks. Audience reception, driven by both families and hardcore Sonic fans, has been very strong with an A on CinemaScore, 4/5 on Postrak, and 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Even critics have been fairly positive with a 65% Rotten Tomatoes score... If this weekend's estimates hold, "Sonic" wi...