ESO Photo Release | ALMA | 2017 Jan 17
[c][imghover=https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/eso17 ... risonb.jpg]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/eso17 ... risona.jpg[/imghover]Comparison of the solar disc in ultraviolet and millimetre wavelengthsNew images taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have revealed otherwise invisible details of our Sun, including a new view of the dark, contorted centre of a sunspot that is nearly twice the diameter of the Earth. The images are the first ever made of the Sun with a facility where ESO is a partner. The results are an important expansion of the range of observations that can be used to probe the physics of our nearest star. The ALMA antennas had been carefully designed so they could image the Sun without being damaged by the intense heat of the focussed light.
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NASA/SDO[/c][hr][/hr]
Astronomers have harnessed ALMA's capabilities to image the millimetre-wavelength light emitted by the Sun’s chromosphere — the region that lies just above the photosphere, which forms the visible surface of the Sun. The solar campaign team, an international group of astronomers with members from Europe, North America and East Asia [1], produced the images as a demonstration of ALMA’s ability to study solar activity at longer wavelengths of light than are typically available to solar observatories on Earth.
Astronomers have studied the Sun and probed its dynamic surface and energetic atmosphere in many ways through the centuries. But, to achieve a fuller understanding, astronomers need to study it across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including the millimetre and submillimetre portion that ALMA can observe. ...
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