Detailed images of Sun's turbulent surface released, looks like boiling pot of popcorn

Hawaii, Jan 30: Astronomers on Wednesday released first images from a newly operational telescope revealing most detailed images of the sun's surface and preview the transformative images to come from this 13-foot solar telescope. It was seen through the new Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii.

The images of the Sun looks like a boiling pot of popcorn, belies the notion of a bland yellow orb.

Reportedly, the details in the images show the plasma, which covers the sun, that appears to boil.

France Cordova, director of the National Science Foundation said, "Since NSF (National Science Foundation) began work on this ground-based telescope, we have eagerly awaited the first images."

He also said that the telescope can share more detailed and updated images and videos of the Sun. NSF's Inouye Solar Telescope will be able to map the magnetic fields within the Sun's corona, where solar eruptions take place that can impact life on Earth.

This telescope will also improve scientist's understanding of what drives space weather and ultimately help forecasters better predict solar storms.

The telescope was originally known as the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope and was renamed in the honour of the late Senator Daniel Inouye in December 2013.

David Boboltz, programme director in NSF's division of astronomical sciences and who oversees the facility's construction and operations said that over the next six months, the Inouye telescope's team of scientists, engineers and technicians will continue testing and commissioning the telescope to make it ready for use by the international solar scientific community.

He also added that the Inouye Solar Telescope will collect more information about the Sun during the first five years of its lifetime than all the solar data gathered since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the Sun in 1612.