On September 4, the ALMA Solar Observation Workshop was held at the NAOJ Mitaka campus with the participation of more than 20 researchers who specialize in solar observation. At the workshop, Ken’ichi Tatematsu (a professor at the NAOJ Chile Observatory, East Asian ALMA Regional Center Manager) talked about the progress and future plan of the ALMA Telescope, and Masumi Shimojo (an assistant professor at the NAOJ Nobeyama Solar Radio Observatory/Chile Observatory) explained the solar observation performance of ALMA and the state of preparation toward the start of the observation. Following their talks, there were presentations of the solar observation results obtained with other observation instruments, and participants discussed future observations of solar flare (burst of magnetic energy on the Sun’s surface) and solar chromosphere (solar atmosphere) with ALMA.

Japanese solar observations conducted with sophisticated instruments such as the Nobeyama Radio Heliograph and Hinode (a solar observational satellite) maintain a high level of research excellence worldwide. Along with the observational studies, Japanese researchers are actively working on theoretical studies. It is expected that many new findings will be brought by future serial radio imaging to be achieved by ALMA at unprecedentedly high spatial resolution.