New Jersey Institute of Technology's (NJIT) new 1.6-meter clear aperture solar telescope — the largest of its kind in the world—is now operational. The unveiling of this remarkable instrument, said to be the pathfinder for all future, large ground-based telescopes, could not have come at a more auspicious moment for science. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s telescope that he used to demonstrate that sunspots are indeed on the Sun. The new instrument has three times the aperture of the old telescope. It represents a significant advance in high-resolution observations of the Sun, since it has the largest aperture of any solar telescope in existence.