NuSTAR is a space-based X-ray telescope is so good that it can spot black holes millions of light-years away and help us gain deep insight into our own Sun, said Brian Grefenstette with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Hannah showed an image of the Sun On Wednesday, July 8, to attendees of the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales. The image was taken by using NuSTAR.
“The most widely understood black holes are known as stellar black holes and can contain 20 times the mass of the sun within a ball of space with a diameter of about 10 miles”, he added.
He said the star in our own backyard is quieting down in its activity cycle, but it won’t reach a minimum until a couple of years.
Nanoflares, unlike solar flares that come out erratically, constantly occur on the Sun’s surface. X-rays with energies between 2 and 6 kiloelectron volts are showed in the new image.
The image taken by NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) shows the most active regions in blue. Japan’s X-ray Telescope instrument on the Hinode spacecraft shows less active regions in green. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, on the other hand, shows ultraviolet wavelengths in yellow and green.
Scientists believe they will be able to lift the lid off the secrets behind the solar cycle by better studying the Sun. This will pave the way for making better predictions about when the next flare will burst out. Solar flares are known as potential threats to satellites and power infrastructure.
