Queen's University Belfast will lead a consortium of eight UK institutions to launch a revolutionary $344million solar telescope.
The universities and businesses involved will oversee the development and delivery of cameras for the Hawaii-based telescope.
Armagh Observatory, Northumbria University, University College London, and the Universities of Glasgow, Sheffield, St. Andrews and Warwick, are all involved in the project.
The Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will be launched in 2019 and is being constructed by the US National Solar Observatory.
Professor Mihalis Mathioudakis of the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, said: “Scientific discoveries demand technological innovation and play a major role in economic growth. DKIST will be a revolutionary instrument for ground-based solar physics, which is a growth area in the UK.
“It will be in a position to explore key questions regarding solar magnetic field generation and dissipation, solar variability, atmospheric structure and dynamics.
“Our consortium will deliver key equipment that will allow DKIST to achieve these scientific goals and it’s another example of how Queen’s research impacts on society, both locally and internationally.”
Collectively, the consortium will lead the way in supporting the UK solar physics community in their use of what will be the world’s biggest solar telescope.
Its four-metre diameter main mirror will enable the telescope to pick up unprecedented detail on the surface of the sun - the equivalent of being able to examine a €1 coin from 100 kilometres away.
The DKIST is expected to address the fundamental questions surrounding the present-day understanding of solar physics.
"The sun is the most important astronomical object for humankind with solar activity driving space weather and having profound effects on global climate and technology-based communications,” Professor Mathioudakis added.
"To understand solar activity we need to observe and model the physical processes in the solar atmosphere on their intrinsic spatial and temporal scales so that, among other questions, we can reliably forecast this activity in space."
