NASA X-Ray Telescope Captures the Sun in a Spectacular New Image

NASA's black hole telescope has captured an amazing picture of our sun. the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has examined the X-rays that light up the surface of our sun and has helped create a new picture.

NuSTAR usually spends its time investigating black holes, supernovae and other high-energy objects in space. In this case, though, the telescope revealed a bit more about our own sun.

"We can see a few active regions on the sun in this view," said Iain Hannah, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Our sun is quieting down in its activity cycle, but still has a couple of years before it reaches a minimum."

Active areas of the sun are filled with flares, which are giant eruptions on the surface of the sun that spew out charged particles and high-energy radiation. They occur when magnetic field lines become tangled and broken, and then reconnect.

In theory, NuSTAR could also detect hypothesized nanoflares, which are one-billionth the energy of regular flares. These nanoflares may actually explain why the sun's atmosphere is so much hotter than expected.

"We still need the sun to quiet down more over the next few years to have the ability to detect these events," said Hannah.

NuSTAR's images could also pinpoint where energy from flares is released. While scientists know that energy is generally liberated in the upper solar atmosphere, the locations and detailed mechanisms aren't precisely known.

This new image could just be the start of further, detailed observations of our sun. This, in turn, may help improve predictions for space weather and also tell researchers a bit more about the processes that fuel stars.

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