Year-ender: China's sci-tech achievements in 2022

Images obtained by Kuafu 1 released, realizing multiple firsts at home and abroad

On Dec 13, China released the first batch of scientific images captured by the country's Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory, which is specially designed to carry out comprehensive probes of the Sun.

The space-borne solar observatory is nicknamed Kuafu 1, after a giant in Chinese mythology who chased the sun. It was launched by a Long March 2D rocket on Oct 9 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gobi Desert. Being a near-Earth orbit mission, it is the world's first solar telescope in space that can simultaneously monitor solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

The three special pieces of equipment on the ASO-S are a full-disk vector magnetograph, a hard X-ray imager and the Lyman-alpha Solar Telescope, all of which are highly complex instruments that Chinese scientists and engineers are putting into use for the first time. The images of the Sun are obtained by the three payloads carried by the satellite while operating in orbit for two months, realizing multiple firsts at home and abroad and verifying the observation capability and advanced nature of the three payloads in orbit.