The first images have been published from the Sunrise-Ⅲ balloon-borne solar telescope's successful 6.5-day stratospheric flight in July 2024. The unprecedented huge amount of data (about 200 terabytes) recorded during the flight observations show structures down to only 50 kilometers in size on the Sun's visible surface. The Sun is now in the maximum phase of its 11-year solar cycle (Cycle 25), so solar activity was high during the Sunrise-Ⅲ flight observations. Two solar flares were successfully observed as well as growing sunspots and various dynamical phenomena.
Within the international collaboration framework of the Sunrise-Ⅲ project, the near-infrared spectropolarimeter SCIP was developed under the leadership of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. SCIP observes many spectral lines simultaneously, including chromospheric and photospheric spectral lines, in the near-infrared wavelength bands. The images obtained by SCIP show the three-dimensional structures of the radiation intensity (Figure, right top) and magnetic field (Figure, right bottom) from the solar surface (photosphere) to the upper solar atmosphere (chromosphere). Elongated, fibril-like fine-scale structures in the vertical direction can be seen in the chromosphere, connecting the positive (white) and negative (black) polarity magnetic fields. Thanks to Sunrise-Ⅲ's observations from a balloon in Earth's stratosphere, the temporal evolution of these three-dimensional structures was successfully captured for several hours without interruption.
Furthermore, a Spanish team of amateur astronomers mounted four cameras on balloon's gondola and took "selfies" of Sunrise-Ⅲ during the flight from takeoff to landing. Please take a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKWAjiNBPxo
The balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise-Ⅲ is a mission of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS, Germany) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL, USA). Sunrise-Ⅲ looks at the Sun from the stratosphere using a 1-meter telescope, three scientific instruments, and an image stabilization system. Significant contributors to the mission are a Spanish consortium, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ, Japan), and the Leibniz Institute for Solar Physics (KIS, Germany). The Spanish consortium is led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA, Spain) and includes the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), Universitat de València (UV), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). Other partners include NASA's Wallops Flight Facility Balloon Program Office (WFF-BPO) and the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC).
Sunrise-Ⅲ is supported by funding from the Max Planck Foundation, NASA under Grant #80NSSC18K0934 and #80NSSC24M0024 ("Heliophysics Low Cost Access to Space" program), and the ISAS/JAXA Small Mission-of-Opportunity program and JSPS KAKENHI JP18H05234. The Spanish contributions have been funded by the Spanish MCIN/AEI under projects RTI2018-096886-B-C5, and PID2021-125325OB-C5, and from "Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa" awards to IAA-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709, CEX2021-001131-S), all co-funded by European REDEF funds, "A way of making Europe".
【Link】
Report from the Max Planck Institute. https://www.mps.mpg.de/first-solar-images-from-sunrise-iii?c=6775
Sunrise-Ⅲ/SCIP Data Recovery https://solarwww.mtk.nao.ac.jp/sunrise-scip/news/individual/2024/09/scip-datarecovery-en.html