Chinese astronomers have built the country's first and the
world's sharpest space solar telescope (SST), scheduled for launch
in 2008 to observe the expected peak in sunspot activity the
following year.
Jin Shengzhen, leading the ambitious project, told Xinhua News
Agency yesterday, "Our telescope, with the highest optical
resolution, will collect the most comprehensive solar scientific
data."
The SST, with a couple of one-meter-caliber main optical
telescopes, will be carried into a 730 km sun-synchronous
orbit.
The two-ton system, including two main optical telescopes, X-ray
telescopes, a wide-band spectrograph, a helium spectrum telescope
and a radio spectrograph,?is designed to function
for?three years.
It measures 5 x 2 x 2 meters and has cost 80 million yuan
(US$9.66 million) so far.
"It will scan a 70-kilometer-diameter area of the solar
surface," said Jin, principal researcher at the National Astronomical
Observatories?with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), adding
that its resolution is?10 times that of the current US solar
telescope, SOHO.
High-performance computers, with a total of 50 central
processing units, will transmit data at a speed of 100 mega-bytes
per second from space to a ground station at Miyun, in the
northeastern suburbs of Beijing.
The SST will be used to study the solar magnetic field, fine
structures on the Sun's surface, the accumulation and release of
solar flares and Sun-Earth interaction, said Jin.
This is China's first space solar telescope; developed countries
have launched over 130 spacecraft for solar observation, 20 of
which are still orbiting.
Japan, the US and UK are now jointly developing a new solar
telescope called SOLAR-B. With a diameter of 0.5 meters, its
optical resolution is only half that of China's.
William Livingston, a leading US National Solar Observatory
astronomer, said the Chinese telescope is "unique" and "significant
to push forward the edges of solar physical research."
Astronomers estimate that investment in the project by 2008 will
be?1 billion yuan (US$120.8 million). They say it will be
useful for improving technologies in remote sensing, global
positioning and satellite data processing.
"China's first SST will lead its peers made by other countries
in the early decades of the 21st century," said Sun Jiadong, an
academician of the CAS and of?the?International Academy
of Astronautics.
(Xinhua News Agency July 13, 2005)