Sunrise III Stratospheric Solar Observatory Completes Successful 6.5-Day Mission
Sunrise III, a balloon-borne solar observatory with a 1-meter telescope, completed a successful 6.5-day flight from Sweden to Canada in July 2024, collecting approximately 200 TB of data. The mission observed the lower solar atmosphere at unprecedented resolution of approximately 50 km on the Sun's surface using three specialized post-focus instruments. The collected data is now yielding first scientific results published in a focus issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Sunrise III is a stratospheric balloon-borne solar observatory designed to study the lower solar atmosphere, from the photosphere through the middle chromosphere. The instrument features a 1-meter diameter telescope paired with three post-focus instruments and an image stabilization system, all housed within a protective gondola. The mission launched from northern Sweden in July 2024 and traveled to northwestern Canada over 6.5 days, successfully gathering approximately 200 terabytes of observational data. The observatory achieved spatial resolution approaching 50 kilometers on the Sun, enabling detailed study of solar atmospheric structures. The mission faced various technical challenges in measurements, data reduction, and interpretation, which are being addressed as the scientific community analyzes the dataset. Initial results from the mission are being published in a dedicated focus issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
What different sources said
- arXiv astro-phCenter
Sunrise III: Instrument, mission, data, and first results
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