Sun  ID: 4715

Swedish Solar Telescope: Solar Closeups

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on June 7, 2019
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Close-up of Active Region 12593 through the 400 nm filter of the Swedish Solar Telescope. SDO/HMI provides the background image.
This imagery from the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope (SST) at La Palma, Spain is part of a series of multi-wavelength observations of a solar active region. This imagery is taken at a wavelength of light near the K-line of ionized calcium (Wikipedia). The goal of the observations was to better understand the methods by which non-thermal energy is injected into the solar chromosphere by mechanisms such as emerging magnetic fields in sunspots.

In this close-up of the solar photosphere, we see the dark regions of sunspots, and solar granules changing with time. These granules are the tops of convection cells where hot gas rises from the interior to cool and then descend back down. The SST achieves its high resolution using an adaptive optics system to reduce the effects of atmospheric turbulence. Some frames of the movie exhibit blurring as the turbulence became too high to completely cancel out.

To get a sense of scale of the closeup, the image covers a region 46,900 x 33,500 km. Since the diameter of Earth is about 12,700 km, it could fit four Earths in the horizontal dimension and three Earths in the vertical dimension.
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Zoom in from a full-disk view from SDO/HMI to a close-up of Active Region 12593 through the 400 nm filter of the Swedish Solar Telescope.

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Visualizer
Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Technical Support
Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Technical Support
Jorrit Leenaarts (Institute for Solar Physics, Stockholm University): Scientist
Jaime de la Cruz Rodriguez (Institute for Solar Physics, Stockholm University): Scientist
Data taken by Jaime de la Cruz Rodriguez & Jorrit Leenaarts at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope
Visualization generated by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Science Paper:
Chromospheric heating during flux emergence in the solar atmosphere

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4715

Data Used:
SDO/HMI/Continuum also referred to as: SDO Continuum
2016-Sep-19 09:00 to 2016-Sep-19 09:54 UT
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Swedish Solar Telescope/CHROMIS/4000 Angstroms
Observed Data - Swedish Research Council - 2016-Sep-19 09:28 to 2016-Sep-19 09:54 UT
view all stories where this data set is used
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

Keywords:
SVS >> Convection
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity >> Sunspots
SVS >> Hyperwall
SVS >> Solar Granulation
SVS >> Heliophysics
NASA Science >> Sun
SVS >> Visible Light Imaging

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0

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