SUNRISE: INSTRUMENT, MISSION, DATA, AND FIRST RESULTS

Journal Article · Wed Nov 10 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/723/2/L127· OSTI ID:21452690

Solanki, S K; Barthol, P; Danilovic, S; Feller, A; Gandorfer, A; Hirzberger, J; Riethmueller, T L; Schuessler, M ^[1]; Bonet, J A; Pillet, V MartInez ^[2]; Del Toro Iniesta, J C ^[3]; Domingo, V; Palacios, J ^[4]; Knoelker, M ^[5]; Gonzalez, N Bello; Berkefeld, T; Franz, M; Schmidt, W ^[6]

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1. Max-Planck-Institut fuer Sonnensystemforschung, Max-Planck-Str. 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau (Germany)
2. Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, C/Via Lactea s/n, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain)
3. Instituto de Astrofisica de AndalucIa (CSIC), Apdo. de Correos 3004, E-18080, Granada (Spain)
4. Grupo de AstronomIa y Ciencias del Espacio, Universidad de Valencia, E-46980, Paterna, Valencia (Spain)
5. High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 (United States)
6. Kiepenheuer-Institut fuer Sonnenphysik, Schoeneckstr. 6, 79104 Freiburg (Germany)

The SUNRISE balloon-borne solar observatory consists of a 1 m aperture Gregory telescope, a UV filter imager, an imaging vector polarimeter, an image stabilization system, and further infrastructure. The first science flight of SUNRISE yielded high-quality data that revealed the structure, dynamics, and evolution of solar convection, oscillations, and magnetic fields at a resolution of around 100 km in the quiet Sun. After a brief description of instruments and data, the first qualitative results are presented. In contrast to earlier observations, we clearly see granulation at 214 nm. Images in Ca II H display narrow, short-lived dark intergranular lanes between the bright edges of granules. The very small-scale, mixed-polarity internetwork fields are found to be highly dynamic. A significant increase in detectable magnetic flux is found after phase-diversity-related reconstruction of polarization maps, indicating that the polarities are mixed right down to the spatial resolution limit and probably beyond.

• OSTI ID: 21452690
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 723, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/723/2/L127; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BALLOONS
CHROMOSPHERE
CONVECTION
FACULAE
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETIC FLUX
PHOTOSPHERE
PLAGES
POLARIMETERS
SOLAR GRANULATION
SOLAR SYSTEM EVOLUTION
SPATIAL RESOLUTION
STAR EVOLUTION
SUN
TELESCOPES
AIRCRAFT
ATMOSPHERES
ENERGY TRANSFER
EVOLUTION
HEAT TRANSFER
MAIN SEQUENCE STARS
MASS TRANSFER
RESOLUTION
SOLAR ACTIVITY
SOLAR ATMOSPHERE
STARS
STELLAR ACTIVITY
STELLAR ATMOSPHERES