Solar telescopes as a research area encompasses the design, optimization, and scientific exploitation of instruments dedicated to high-resolution, multi-wavelength observation of the Sun. This field integrates optical engineering, adaptive optics, polarimetry, spectroscopy, and imaging techniques to measure solar photospheric, chromospheric, and coronal structures and dynamics. Research focuses on improving spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution; mitigating atmospheric seeing; and extending observations from radio to gamma-ray regimes, including space-based and ground-based platforms. It supports quantitative studies of solar magnetism, flares, coronal mass ejections, and irradiance variability, providing critical data for heliophysics, plasma astrophysics, and space weather forecasting.
For six and a half days in July 2024, the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III kept its gaze fixed on the sun. The stratospheric flight, which stretched from the northernmost tip of Sweden to Canada's Northwest Territories, ...
Astronomy
Jul 9, 2026
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27
A new telescope technology—measuring just 6 millimeters (0.24 inches) in diameter—could improve how future space missions study and monitor the sun while simplifying onboard hardware and reducing costs.
Space Exploration
Jun 10, 2026
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24
Solar flares are the most explosive energy-release events in the solar corona, leading to intense particle acceleration, plasma heating and bulk plasma motions on short timescales. Core questions during solar flares remain ...
Astronomy
Jun 9, 2026
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17
Close to 100 scientists from all over Europe, the United States, and Japan are gathering this week at the Institute for Solar Physics (KIS) in Freiburg to present and discuss the first scientific results from the successful ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 3, 2026
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10
For observers on Earth, the sun appears as a bright, familiar disk—but what we see is only half the story. Like the moon, one half of the sun is permanently hidden from our direct view: the far side beyond the visible solar ...
Astronomy
Apr 24, 2026
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17
On August 19, 2022, solar astronomers using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on the Hawaiian island of Maui caught the fading remnants of a C-class solar flare. Their observations showed something unusual: very ...
Astronomy
Apr 12, 2026
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75
The Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope (PoET), installed at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO's) Paranal site in Chile, has made its first observations. The telescope will work with ESO's ESPRESSO instrument to study ...
Astronomy
Apr 9, 2026
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40
Fast solar winds originating from the sun can have direct impacts on Earth—disrupting systems like GPS, aviation, electrical grids, and satellite and radio communications. A new paper by New Mexico State University astronomy ...
Astronomy
Apr 8, 2026
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22
Researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) are helping reshape how scientists study the sun. The UH-led team has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can map the sun's magnetic ...
Astronomy
Dec 11, 2025
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63
Scientists have captured an exceptionally rare, high-resolution view of an active region that produced two powerful X-class solar flares—an achievement rarely possible from Earth. Using the GREGOR solar telescope in Tenerife, ...
Astronomy
Nov 28, 2025
3
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