China's meteorological satellite Fengyun-3E (FY-3E) released its first set of high precision and multi-band solar images on Thursday, according to China Science Daily's report on Friday.
The imager captured extreme ultraviolet images of the sun, X-ray and the fine spectral radiation intensity in the ultraviolet-shortwave infrared band. The images were monitored by a solar X-ray extreme ultraviolet imager and a solar spectral irradiance monitor attached to the FY-3E satellite.
Researchers can better monitor and predict solar activity levels by the newly released images, said Zhang Peng, deputy director of the National Satellite Meteorological Center (NSMC).
The FY-3E satellite was launched on July 5. It is the world's first early morning weather satellite for civil use.
The solar X-ray extreme ultraviolet imager is the first space solar telescope in China. It can monitor the activity of the solar corona, capture the process of solar storms, predict the changes of both geospatial electromagnetic fields and charged particles, and send warnings of the impact of solar activities on aviation, telecommunication navigation, power grids and oil pipelines.
The solar spectral irradiance monitor can record the subtle changes of incoming energy from the sun to the earth. The instrument plays a vital role to precisely monitor energy changes of Earth's climate system.
It is crucial to constantly monitor the solar activities since solar bursts could affect Earth's magnetic field and ionosphere, disturb the operation of artificial satellites and even cause power grid failure.
The newly released images were achieved in cooperation with the NSMC, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Peking University.
