The most powerful instrument of its kind has now taken its first picture of the sun. Although the Inouye Solar Telescope began operating from its perch on the Hawaiian volcano Haleakala in 2022, the addition of its latest key piece of equipment provides a major boost to its spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution to the most powerful telescope of its kind in the world.
This will increase its ability to visualize eruptions on the sun’s surface. Those storms hurl particles and radiation into space, producing spectacular auroras on Earth — but also can disrupt some technical infrastructure and satellites.
“The Inouye Solar Telescope was designed to study the underlying physics of the Sun as the driver of space weather,” Christoph Keller, director of the National Solar Observatory, which operates the Inouye Solar Telescope, said in a press release.
