The Chinese Space Observatory detects more than 200 solar flares

Launched in October last year, the Space-Based Advanced Solar Observatory (ASO-S), the first Chinese spacecraft dedicated to studying our star, has so far detected more than 200 solar flares.

Dubbed Kuafu-1 (in reference to a legendary giant and divine hero who, according to Chinese mythology, sought to tame the sun), the equipment made its first recording of the star just days after arriving at its destination.

According to Gan Weiqun, chief scientist of the project at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), data from the observatory has been made available for experimental use in China and abroad.

It features three tools: the Lyman-alpha solar telescope (LST), the Hard X-ray imager (HXI) and the Full disk vector MagnetoGraph (FMG). Of these, according to Gan, the HXI is the one with the best performance in orbit, being responsible for obtaining the only X-ray image in the world difficult of the Sun from a near-Earth perspective.

According to NASA, they are called difficult (hard) X-rays of higher energy, while they are called X-rays of lower energy soft (soft). While the distinction between them is not well defined, in general, hard X-rays are typically those with energies above about 10 keV (short for one thousand electron volts).

“The details of the non-thermal radiation distribution of solar flares captured by HXI are quite rare, exceeding previous expectations,” Gan told Xinhua, China’s state news agency.

For its part, FMG has made the first Chinese observation of a solar magnetic field from space. Capable of longer-range observations, LST captured the entire disk of the Sun, detecting a few rare flashes of white light and several Lyman-alpha lines in solar flares.

The Lyman-alpha waveband, representing the spectra of neutral hydrogen released by more than 70% of the Sun’s mass, is known to be the strongest ultraviolet emission line affecting the Earth’s ionosphere.

According to Gan, in six months of putting into orbit, the Kuafu-1 probe has obtained a large amount of raw solar observing data and is progressing well, with the potential to help physicists in China and the rest of the world with in-depth research in the future.

Post-China space observatory detects more than 200 solar flares that first appeared on Digital Look.

Source: Olhar Digital