Your social media feeds might’ve been filled over the past couple of weeks with photos of the recent “ring of fireside” annular eclipse, which crossed the western U.S. on Oct. 14. But it surely wasn’t just photographers who imaged the celestial event.
Scientists from the Latest Jersey Institute of Technology’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (NJIT-CSTR) used the brand new Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA) in California to capture the first-ever radio images of an annular solar eclipse.
Using a set of 352 antennas measuring radio wavelengths between roughly 20 and 88 megahertz (MHz), the team captured images of the eclipse’s ring, which lasted for nearly an hour within the radio spectrum. Against this, the visible light experience solar enthusiasts admired lasted only a couple of minutes. That is since the radio sun is about twice as large because the visible solar disk.
Related: Annular solar eclipse of 2023 wows skywatchers with spectacular ‘ring of fireside’ (photos, video)
“From our observatory site in California we weren’t within the belt to see the annular eclipse, yet we’ve been capable of ‘see’ all of it clearly unfold in radio, which reveals a much larger solar disk than its visible counterpart because of its sensitivity to the prolonged solar corona,” Bin Chen, NJIT-CSTR associate professor of physics, said in a press release.
The corona just isn’t normally visible from the bottom, except during a complete solar eclipse (just like the one occurring on Apr. 8, 2024), but OVRO-LWA has modified the sport. Now, with this instrument, the corona is visible to us in any respect times — and researchers are particularly desperate to observe it during other eclipses.
“Science-wise, this can be a unique opportunity to check the sun’s prolonged corona with the best resolution possible at these wavelengths, making the most of the moon’s limb as a moving ‘knife edge’ to extend the effective angular resolution,” said Chen.
The team is now developing a process to supply “near-real-time solar images” for the general public.
“These eclipse images function a proof-of-concept for this effort,” said Chen. “The unprecedented data products coming soon will open recent opportunities for discovery in solar astronomy and space weather studies.”