NASA ’s Earth - orbitingNuSTARtelescope is normally used to peer at X - rays from high - energy events out in the universe like black muddle and supernovae .
But recently , the federal agency decide instead to train its radical - raw tv camera on the Sun – and the results are rather spectacular . As seen in dingy in the persona above , pointing NuSTAR at our Solar System ’s star revealed high - energy X - re from flares .
As NuSTAR is so sensitive , it can not hit the books X - shaft from full fledgedsolar flares , so these are actually small microflares , which are a million time weak . Flares on the sun , which are eructation of file particles , grade when magnetized field line combine and give way , and some are follow by ejections of material called Coronal Mass Ejections ( CMEs ) . The relationship between the two is poorly understood .
" What ’s great about NuSTAR is that the telescope is so versatile that we can hunt black holes millions of light - year away and we can also learn something profound about the star in our own backyard , " aver Brian Grefenstette of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena , an astronomer on the NuSTAR team , in astatement .
In the look-alike , presented at the Royal Astronomical Society ’s National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno , Wales by Iain Hannah of the University of Glasgow , the other colors are from unlike telescopes . Green is from the X - re Telescope tool on Japan’sHinodespacecraft , while yellow and red amount from NASA’sSolar Dynamics Observatory(SDO ) .
show is the full image . reference : NASA / JPL - Caltech / GSFC / JAXA
The Sun is now “ quieting down ” in its 11 - year solar cycle according to Hannah , which means that there wo n’t be too many more opportunities to see events like this before it reach its minimal action in a few eld .
However , one consequence is that it might be possible to see hypothesized nanoflares – eruption that have one billionth of the energy of regular solar flares . It ’s thought that these explosions may be thereasonthat the Sun ’s corona – its extinct air – is so much hot than its surface .
NuSTAR could also be used to figure out other solar mysteries , such as whether it is emitting dark matter particles be intimate as axions , which has beensuggestedrecently .
