Historic Solar Images Captured
Scientists captured the sharpest images yet of the Sun’s visible surface using the world’s most powerful solar telescope.
Footage released by the US National Solar Observatory on Wednesday shows bright, tightly packed structures swirling around darker magnetic regions on the Sun’s surface. Fine ripples and whirlpool-like patterns emerge along their edges as streams of superheated plasma race past at different speeds.
Powerful Telescope Reveals Details
Scientists used a high-speed camera mounted on the US National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii. The instrument recorded up to 740 frames per second, with 2,000 exposures combined to produce each reconstructed scientific image.
By merging the observations with computer simulations, researchers identified the signature of tiny whirlpools on the Sun’s surface, a breakthrough that could deepen scientists’ understanding of how solar activity develops.
Tiny Solar Whirlpools Found
The team identified the patterns as magnetised Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. Similar rolling disturbances form where fluids moving at different speeds meet, including in oceans, clouds and planetary atmospheres.
Scientists had long predicted that the process could occur in the Sun’s photosphere, but features at this scale had remained beyond the reach of earlier telescopes.
The process could transport mass, energy and magnetic flux across the solar surface. It may also contribute to the twisting of magnetic fields that drives solar flares, jets and coronal mass ejections, giving scientists a clearer understanding of solar activity and potentially improving forecasts.
National Solar Observatory, via Viory.Video
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