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1h ago

Inouye Solar Telescope Images Smallest-Ever Coronal Loops in X-Class Flare

H-alpha images at roughly 24-kilometer resolution provide a new testbed for flare physics and space-weather modeling.

Image
A high-resolution image of the flare from the Inouye Solar Telescope, taken on August 8, 2024, at 20:12 UT. The image is about 4 Earth-diameters on each side. Labels of the different relevant regions of the image are added for clarity: flare ribbons (bright areas of energy release in the dense lower solar atmosphere) and an arcade of coronal loops (arcs of plasma outlining magnetic field lines that transport energy from the corona to the flare ribbons). Image credit: NSF / NSO / AURA.

Overview

  • Peer-reviewed results published August 25 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters detail hundreds of ultra-fine strands resolved during the flare’s decay phase.
  • Loop widths averaged about 48.2 kilometers with some features near 21 kilometers, the smallest coronal loops imaged to date.
  • DKIST’s Visible Broadband Imager at the H-alpha wavelength resolves solar structure down to roughly 24 kilometers, more than 2.5 times sharper than prior ground-based systems.
  • The X1.3-class flare occurred on August 8, 2024 and was captured at 20:12 UT in a field of view about four Earth-diameters across, marking DKIST’s first X-class flare observation.
  • Researchers suggest the strands may be elemental loop structures that could constrain magnetic reconnection scales and inform forecasting, a hypothesis that needs further observations.