China launched its first comprehensive space-based solar telescope called Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) and starts search for the Sun’s secrets.
Allowing scientists to capture and study unprecedented images of the sun during its most aggressive phase known as solar maximum, a period of intense solar activity set to peak around 2025. Sun’s secrets, The effort will yield critical insights on the two most violent activities of our closest star, solar flares and coronal mass ejections, along with the powerful radiation and complex magnetic fields they generate. Probing these phenomena will help scientists understand turbulent space weather created by the sun that can potentially knock out infrastructures and sensitive equipment on Earth like satellites, electronics, power grids, and internet services.
The telescope is nicknamed Kuafu-1, after a giant in Chinese mythology who chased after the sun. It was launched onboard the Long March-2 rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China’s Gobi Desert on Sunday morning. Last year, Sun’s secrets, China launched a small experimental satellite called the Chinese Hydrogen-Alpha Solar Explorer to study solar flares and serve as a precursor to ASO-S Operating at 720 kilometers above Earth, Kuafu-1, which weighs 859 kilograms, is China’s first full-scale, dedicated instrument to study the sun. The satellite is equipped with three payloads and is set to operate for more than four years.
Source: This news is originally published by chinadaily