China completes new large solar telescope

Scientists from from the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday that they have built the country's first and one of the world's largest solar telescope, to better observe and forecast solar activity.

The Chinese Large Solar Telescope (CLST), with a 1.8-meter aperture, was developed by the academy's Institute of Optics and Electronics. It caught the first batch of high-resolution images of the solar atmosphere on Dec. 10, 2019, an academy statement said.

Many countries have stepped up efforts to build 2-meter and larger solar telescopes in recent years. The world's large solar telescopes that have been built include the 1.6-meter GST in the United States and the 1.5-meter GREGOR in Germany.

The U.S. 4-meter solar telescope DKIST has not yet been put into operation, and the European 4-meter EST has just begun designing and developing.

Previous to the CLST, the largest solar telescope in China was the 1-meter New Vacuum Solar Telescope developed by the academy's Yunnan Observatories.

According to Rao Changhui, leading the project, the CLST will be equipped with a group of systems for adaptive optics, magnetic field detection and velocity field detection.

As solar activity are increasingly frequent, space weather events will become more severe. In the future, the solar telescope will be used to observe solar activity, offering data support for solar research and space weather forecast, Rao said.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Related Links
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Solar Science News at SpaceDaily

Tweet

Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly

paypal only

SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once

credit card or paypal

BU astrophysicist and collaborators reveal a new model of our heliosphere
Boston MA (SPX) Mar 20, 2020
The heliosphere is a vast region, extending more than twice as far as Pluto. It casts a magnetic "force field" around all the planets, deflecting charged particles that would otherwise muscle into the solar system and even tear through DNA. However, the heliosphere, despite its name, is not actually a sphere. Space physicists have long compared its shape to a comet, with a round "nose" on one side and a long tail extending in the opposite direction. In 2015, using a new computer model and data fro ... read more