China prepares to study solar flares using a giant ring of telescopes
the Sun has not yet finished revealing all its secrets to us, in particular with regard to solar flares. China will soon be able to study these phenomena in more detail with its future network of telescopes. It will be the largest network dedicated to the study of coronal mass ejections.
It is in the province of Sichuan, in the south-west of China, that the DSRT or Daocheng Solar Radio Telescope. It will consist of 313 parabolas, each of which will have a diameter of 6 m. The network will be in the form of a ring with a circumference of 3.14 km.
According to information, the DSRT study the Sun in the radio wave range. He will be particularly interested in coronal mass ejections which are jets of charged particles from the solar corona. The latter is the upper part of the Sun’s atmosphere.
The Effects of Solar Flares on Earth
According to scientists, coronal mass ejections are triggered by realignments of the magnetic field at sunspots. When they are directed towards the earththese eruptions can sometimes cause quite serious problems. They affect electrical networks, telecommunications networks, satellites in orbit, and can also put astronauts in danger.
On the other hand, it is thanks to these solar eruptions that we are entitled to the aurora borealis and australis.
A larger project
According to the South China Morning Post, construction of the new telescope array will be completed by the end of this year. We also know that this giant ring is built as part of a larger project called the Chinese Meridian Project (Phase II)and which is led by the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Chinese Meridian Project involves setting up a ground-based space environment monitoring network.
This project also includes the construction of another telescope to monitor the activities of the Sun, the Chinese Spectral Radioheliograph. This one is being built in Inner Mongolia and will consist of 100 dishes placed in such a way that they form a three-armed spiral. He will study the Sun in a wider frequency range than DSRT.
SOURCE: Space.com
