The “Kuafu-1” Satellite Reveals Over 100 Solar White Light Flares, Making Them Unavoidable

Gamingdeputy reported on April 30 that the official account of the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences released a report today, stating that more than a year since the launch of the “Kuafu-1” satellite (ASO-S), the white-light solar telescope (WST/ASO-S) carried by it has S)More than 100 cases of solar white light flares have been observedrevealing that solar white-light flares are not as rare as previously thought.

The first solar flare observed by humans can be traced back to 1859 and is called a Carrington flare. Before the launch of the Kuafu-1 satellite (ASO-S), only about 300 solar white-light flare events were known. Report.

The White-light Solar Telescope (WST/ASO-S) mainly uses the 360nm band to observe Class I white-light flares, imaging the entire sun every 2 minutes, with a field of view covering 1.2 solar radii and a spatial resolution of 3″-4″; when there is When a white-light flare breaks out, the White-light Solar Telescope (WST/ASO-S) will automatically enter the burst mode to rapidly image a local area of ​​the sun with a time resolution of 1 second or 2 seconds.

The “Kuafu-1” Satellite (ASO-S) team analyzed 205 higher-energy flares that occurred from October 2022 to May 2023 and identified 49 white-light flares. The incidence rate of white-light flares was 24 %, much higher than previously observed data.

Gan Weiqun, chief scientist of Kuafu-1 and a researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said:

Observational data from Kuafu-1 suggest that white-light flares are not as rare as previously thought. In the next step, the satellite team will continue to combine multi-band observations from other satellites to comprehensively study white light flares to provide a theoretical basis for my country's space weather forecast.

Gamingdeputy Note: “Kuafu-1” is my country's comprehensive solar exploration satellite. It was launched on October 9, 2022, and was officially delivered to the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in September 2023. It is currently in orbit for scientific operation. stage. Since the launch of the satellite, approximately 600TB of raw solar observation data has been recorded, providing a wealth of material for subsequent research.

refer to

• The “Kuafu-1” scientific team has made important progress in the study of solar white light flares

• A Statistical Study of Solar White-Light Flares Observed by the White-Light Solar Telescope of the Lyman-Alpha Solar Telescope on the Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S/LST/WST) at 360 nm

• The White-light Emissions in Two X-class Flares Observed by ASO-S and CHASE

• “Kuafu” makes the white light flare “nowhere to hide”