Solar Physics

The Solar Physics group has recorded many epoch-making scientific achievements with its solar observation satellite YOHKOH. It made unprecedented solar observation covering almost an entire period of solar activity (about 11 years) from August 1991 until December 2001. It revealed for the first time in the world that the structure of the solar corona changes dynamically in various time scales and that explosive phenomena such as solar flares are magnetic reconnections happening in the solar corona.

HINODE (SOLAR-B), YOHKOH’s successor, was launched by M-V-7 in September 2006 and has operated in good condition ever since. In particular, its attitude stability ensures adequate telescopic efficiency for high-resolution images. Although it is still in the test observation stage, HINODE has already acquired remarkable data that will enable much new scientific research.