University of Sheffield: UK and Europe join forces for construction of largest ever European Solar Telescope

Construction of the largest ever solar telescope built in Europe, designed to provide unparalleled insight into the phenomena of space weather, will be supported by the University of Sheffield, it has been announced today (25 July 2023).

Launched in 2008, the European Solar Telescope (EST) project aims to provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying solar flares and coronal mass ejections. These events determine so-called ‘space weather’, which can lead to geomagnetic storms on earth – seen as the northern lights – and have a strong influence on our technological society.

Leading the United Kingdom Universities Consortium (UKUC), the University of Sheffield today signed the deed of the EST’s Canary Foundation in Santa Cruz, Tenerife. The agreement sees six UK universities, including Aberystwyth, Belfast, Durham, Exeter and Glasgow, along with a further six European countries, commit to the construction of the telescope at the world-renowned El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, at La Palma in Spain.

Professor Robertus von Fay-Siebenburgen, from the University of Sheffield’s School of Mathematics and Statistics, will be a principal investigator for the UKUC project. He said: “The EST will be the biggest ground-based solar telescope constructed in Europe and will keep its European partners at the forefront of solar physics research, so it’s fantastic that so many UK partners have been able to come together to join the EST Canary Foundation today.

“This kind of unrivalled research infrastructure will provide European astronomers and plasma-astrophysicists with an extraordinary tool for observing the Sun and its space weather, one that will pave the way for scientific advancements in some of the world’s biggest and most important challenges, such as the development of green fusion energy.

“By being able to study the physical processes happening in the solar chromosphere in such detail for the first time, we will gain new insight into how the heating mechanisms occur that underpin the plasma heating processes. Learning from how nature does it will help us explore how to replicate the process for the benefit of humankind.”

One of the EST’s primary objectives is to improve understanding of the Sun by observing its magnetic fields in unprecedented detail. Once operational, it will be able to uncover signals currently hidden in the noise and reveal the existence of unknown, tiny magnetic structures.

The optical configuration and instrumentation of EST have been meticulously designed to study the magnetic and dynamic coupling of the solar atmosphere, and capture the interactions between the different atmospheric layers of the Sun.

Additionally, a comprehensive set of instruments will be installed to enable simultaneous observations across multiple wavelengths. This unique capability will give the EST a higher efficiency compared to existing or future telescopes, whether ground-based or space-borne.

The University of Sheffield will be developing designs for the capability of the project to process the vast amounts of data produced by the telescope. It is estimated to produce a petabyte of data per day, roughly equivalent to the amount of data used to store more than 220,000 DVD films. Sheffield will be responsible for how the project can handle and analyse some of this data, which, at the moment, few scientific projects around the world come close to doing. This means that entirely new capabilities are needed to conduct research on such a scale.

The preliminary design phase of the telescope, which was funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme, has recently been completed. After a construction period of six years, the EST’s first light – or becoming operational – is planned for 2028-2029.

The establishment of the EST Foundation today marks a crucial milestone in advancing the project towards the construction phase. One of the primary objectives of the Foundation is to create a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), which will bring together the national ministries of the partner countries. The EST ERIC will be the legal entity responsible for overseeing all aspects of the construction and operation of this large research infrastructure.

Professor Lyndsay Fletcher, of the University of Glasgow’s School of Physics and Astronomy, was part of the team responsible for defining the telescope requirements. She said: “The University of Glasgow has a long history of world-leading research in solar physics, and I very much welcome our investment towards bringing this exciting new facility into being.

“Our research into solar flares and prominences stands to benefit enormously, since the innovative design of the telescope means that it is optimised for measuring the Sun’s magnetic field, which governs these energetic phenomena. Novel instrumentation, recording the Sun’s structure and dynamics with four times the spatial detail of any existing solar telescope in Europe will lead to a step-change in understanding of energetic events on our nearest star.”

Professor Andrew Hillier of the University of Exeter’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics. He said: “Solar research at The University of Exeter focuses on theoretical aspects of the coupling between fluids and magnetic fields. Being part of the investment towards EST gives us a very exciting pathway towards testing our ideas. Our researchers investigate large-scale phenomena like prominence eruptions to small-scale energy transfer and dissipation process with the aim of understanding how mass and energy are transferred in the solar atmosphere. The design of EST is such that we will be able to probe these very small spatial scales, providing key observations to help explain transport and dissipation processes, whilst capturing the larger processes in the extreme detail needed to understand them.”

Professor Huw Morgan, Head of Solar System Physics at Aberystwyth University said: “Aberystwyth University is proud to announce our membership of the UK consortium for the European Solar Telescope. This builds on our long history of involvement in international missions and facilities that are dedicated to improving our understanding of the solar system. Over recent years, our researchers have made key discoveries of the Sun based on data from current ground-based solar telescopes. We are therefore excited to be part of the European-wide network of organisations who will collectively push towards the construction of this new facility.”