NASA’s NuSTAR captures Sun’s colourful X-ray portrait

US space agency NASA has released an incredible image of sun that offers the most colourful as well as sensitive solar portrait ever captured in high-energy X-rays.

The image has been taken by its space-based X-ray telescope called Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).

Detailing about the rare image, David Smith, a solar physicist who has worked with the NuSTAR team, said, “NuSTAR will give us a unique look at the Sun, from the deepest to the highest parts of its atmosphere.”

According to the scientists, the telescope is intended to observe and capture the complicated celestial phenomenon like blasts from black holes. And it was very recently when the NASA team decided to use the space-based X-ray telescope to make the observations of the sun in detail.

The first solar image taken by NuSTAR demonstrates that the telescope holds the potential to gather data about the Sun and its hypothesised nanoflares, i.e. smaller versions of the giant flares of the Sun erupting with charged particles and high-energy radiation.

According to the scientists, if NuSTAR manages to catch the active nanoflares it may solve the decades-old mystery that why the corona, outer atmosphere of Sun, is sizzling hot. This is also termed as the “coronal heating problem”.

Scientists say Sun’s corona is one million degrees Celsius on average, while the Sun’s surface is relatively cooler at 6,000 degrees Celsius.

According to the NASA scientists, the future images will provide a more detailed information about the Sun.