Trump's proposed 2026 budget reductions could lead to the shutdown of the mightiest solar observatory globally.
TITLE: The Apocalyptic Budget: solar gazing may come to a screeching halt
LOCATION: ANCHORAGE, AK - So let's get this straight, huh? The Neil Armstrong of solar observation, Christoph Keller, spilled the beans at a 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage. Plastered up on the big screen was a graph that told an unforgiving tale. The DKIST, the most badass solar beast on the planet? Staring down the barrel of extinction.
Standing in front of that looming graph, Keller pulled no punches. He dropped a bombshell that had everyone trembling in their shoes: If President Trump’s budget plan for FY26 gets approved, only a pittance – a measly $13 million – would find its way to the DKIST. With this financial flop, a facility that's spent a cool $30 million this year alone just won't cut it.
"Putting it bluntly," Keller said, "We can't operate DKIST at $13 million."
The graph did the talking. The left-hand bar showed the budget spent in 2024, the middle represented the big bucks proposed for 2025, and the right-hand bar displayed Trump's miserly FY26 budget proposal. DKIST took up the lion's share of each bar – an overwhelming majority.
Keller, unfazed and firm, highlighted the grim news. A whopping 54% budget cut between 2024 and 2025 would Kill. The. DKIST.
The loss of this beast would be a massive setback, especially when you consider it just caught its first glimpse of reality in 2020 – the result of more than two decades of blood, sweat, and tears. It's the world's most powerful solar telescope, and also the bloomin' biggest, made of about 150 tons of steal. It parks itself a lofty 10,000 feet up on the Haleakalā volcano on the sun-loving island of Maui. Yep, you heard it right – "the house of the sun."
David Boboltz, associate director for DKIST, gushed about the site during the meeting: "It's got low light scattering, excellent seeing."
The DKISTMapper, a professor at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa's Institute for Astronomy (IfA), who contributed to DKIST, previously shared: "It's literally the biggest leap humanity has made in ground-based solar observation since Galileo's time. It's a big deal."
Indeed, the DKIST illuminates the sun like no one else can. Check out this beauty – the first sun-scan it ever made. Each of those cell-like structures is roughly the size of Texas. This is the highest-resolution image of our star ever captured.
You might find it hard to believe that such a small solar region is what we've been staring at. Take a gander at these more recent images from DKIST, revealing magnetic "curtains" on the star's surface, reminiscent of "photospheric striations" shaped by the sun's magnetic field. In yet another image, an area above the sun's atmosphere looks like a chunky rubber spike ball from Chuck E. Cheese. The mind-blowing data keeps coming, and this is all with just a few years of online brainwaves.
But DKIST isn't the only facility sinking with the Titanic. If the FY26 budget plan sails through, just $4 million would be up for grabs to keep the rest of the National Solar Observatory's facilities afloat. "We could maybe support three ground stations," Keller said, hinting at a painful farewell to helioseismology. Weather forecasting initiatives for the greater good might be the only lucky voyagers surviving the storm.
"If something goes wrong, if something busts a gasket, we won't have the cash to fix it," Keller warned. "Congress can fix it, and all citizens here, you know what to do."
- The proposed budget for FY26 could severely impact the field of science, as it may lead to a significant reduction in funding for solar observation, potentially impacting the DKIST and other facilities under the National Solar Observatory.
- In the realm of science news, Christoph Keller, a renowned solar scientist, recently expressed concerns over President Trump’s FY26 budget plan, which could cut funding for solar facilities by more than half.
- Apart from affecting science, the budget cuts could also have implications for general news and politics, as the reduced funding could potentially impact weather forecasting initiatives, a crucial factor for public safety.
- The future of space-and-astronomy and finance intersect in this case, as the proposed budget may lead to a halt in solar gazing, potentially diminishing our understanding of the sun and its phenomena.
