China’s leading astronomer has said the country plans to launch the world’s largest and most advanced space solar telescope into orbit in 2008. Ai Guoxiang, head of the National Astronomical Observatories, told Xinhua, China’s main government-run news agency, that Chinese scientists could use the telescope to study solar physical frontiers. The SST will be used to study the solar magnetic field, fine structures of the sun surface, the energy accumulation and release of solar flares and sun-earth interaction, Ai said. The solar magnetic field has proven itself difficult to measure. The British Journal of Physics listed observation of the solar magnetic field among the four most difficult physical issues of the 21st century, together with quanta gravitation, fusion-related energy and pyro-superconductivity. © Copyright 2004 by United Press International

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