Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2020 February 3

                  Solar Granules at Record High Resolution
            Image Credit: NSO, NSF, AURA, Inouye Solar Telescope

   Explanation: Why does the Sun's surface keep changing? The help find
   out, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) has built the Daniel K.
   Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, USA. The Inouye telescope has a
   larger mirror that enables the capturing of images of higher
   resolution, at a faster rate, and in more colors than ever before.
   Featured are recently-released first-light images taken over 10 minutes
   and combined into a 5-second time-lapse video. The video captures an
   area on the Sun roughly the size of our Earth, features granules
   roughly the size of a country, and resolves features as small as
   30-kilometers across. Granule centers are bright due to the upwelling
   hot solar plasma, while granule edges are dim due to the cooled plasma
   falling back. Some regions between granules edges are very bright as
   they are curious magnetic windows into a deep and hotter solar
   interior. How the Sun's magnetic field keeps changing, channeling
   energy, and affecting the distant Earth, among many other topics, will
   be studied for years to come using data from the new Inouye telescope.

    Astrophysicists: Browse 2,100+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code
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                 Tomorrow's picture: grand canyon night sky
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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