China’s powerful sun-gazing telescope ready for launch

Name: Nasa offers deepest-ever look in space, the farthest humanity has ever seen in time and distance
Uploaded: 2022-07-14T12:30:13.000Z
Duration: 1 min 28 s
Description: Nasa offers deepest-ever look in space, the farthest humanity has ever seen in time and distance

ASO-S heads into space this autumn to observe the next solar maximum, a period of increased flares and sunspots predicted to peak in 2025

The data will help scientists understand turbulent space weather that can knock out power grids on Earth

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China’s Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory, shown here in a rendering, will be China’s first full-size, dedicated tool to examine the sun. Photo: Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Ling Xin

Published: 8:30pm, 14 Jul 2022

China will send a powerful telescope into space this autumn on a four-year mission to capture never-before-seen images of the sun during its stormy season, which will help scientists understand solar flares and other violent space weather.

The Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) is expected to launch on October 20 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert, according to a researcher familiar with the project.

It will join an international fleet of sun-gazing telescopes in space, including Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe and the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter, to closely watch the sun as it nears the next solar maximum, a period of high solar activity expected to peak around 2025.

The Chinese telescope is equipped with cutting-edge instruments to carry out observations impossible on any other platform.

From 720km (447 miles) above Earth, ASO-S will be the first telescope to simultaneously monitor the two most violent activities on our closest star – solar flares and coronal mass ejections – as well as its ever-changing magnetic field, according to the researcher.

This will help humans understand the relationship between these phenomena and how they trigger tumultuous space weather that can knock out power grids and internet services on Earth.

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Nasa offers deepest-ever look in space, the farthest humanity has ever seen in time and distance

Solar flares are intense light bursts, while coronal mass ejections involve the release of huge clouds of charged particles called plasma. Both are believed to be caused by the sun’s turbulent magnetic field.

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