The world's most powerful solar telescope recorded a major milestone on an active volcano in Hawaii and captured detailed images with the telescope's new visible tunable filter (VTF).

Scientists hope that the tool will help predict powerful and potentially destructive solar storms in the future.

Daniel K.

The National Solar Observatory (NSO), which operates the telescope, said the image was taken in technical tests and the VTF is not fully operational. However, the fact that the telescope is able to capture such images at this stage shows the ultimate function of the device.

The NSO describes sunspots as "a region of intense magnetic activity" that can trigger solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which can have a destructive effect on Earth's radio communications and power grid.

"After all these years of work, VTF has been a huge success for me," said Thomas Kentischer, co-chairman of the Institute for Solar Physics (VTF) in Leibniz, Germany.

"I hope this tool will be a powerful tool for scientists to answer outstanding questions about solar physics," Kentischer added.

Matthias Schubert, a project scientist at the institute, spoke poetically about high-tech equipment.

"The importance of technological achievements is that it's easy to think that VTF is the heart of the Inouye Solar telescope, and finally beat it forever," he said.

The NSO describes the sun as "the plasma lab at our doorstep" and says the image of VTF is expected to pass over time, and the telescope will help scientists better predict when powerful solar storms are heading towards Earth to mitigate the damage from these seismic obstacles.

Although the team of researchers praised the telescope's success, the sign of its construction road was years of protests against another large installation on the holy land that many Hawaiians saw it as.