Astronomers have captured the highest-resolution image ever taken of the sun’s visible surface revealing tiny swirling plasma structures that had never been observed before and offering new clues about the star’s complex behaviour.
The image was recorded by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii and focuses on a highly magnetically active region near a sunspot. It shows the Sun’s photosphere – the thin, visible layer of its atmosphere – covered with intricate band-like and swirling plasma patterns.
Researchers identified the newly observed features as evidence of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, a phenomenon that occurs when two layers of fluid moving at different speeds interact, creating pressure that develops into wave-like or swirling motions. While well known in fluid dynamics this is the first time the instability has been confirmed on the Sun.
The swirls appear along the edges of solar granules, which range from 500 to 2,000 kms across and blanket the sun’s surface. Some of the observed boundaries measure just over 20 kms wide highlighting the telescope’s unprecedented resolving power.
Scientists say the discovery could improve understanding of why the sun’s outer atmosphere is far hotter than its surface and how magnetic energy is stored and released. Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research said the findings demonstrate how small-scale plasma processes shape the behaviour of the sun.
