New Images of the Sun Show Its Surface in the Finest Detail yet - WXXV News 25
The images show wave-like vortices long predicted on the sun and may help explain coronal heating and solar eruptions, researchers said.
- Astronomers using the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii captured the first-ever images of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities on the Sun's photosphere, revealing wave-shaped vortices predicted for over a century but never before observed on a star.
- Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities form when two fluid currents move at different speeds, creating shear forces that generate swirling vortices, a process common in Earth's atmosphere and ocean waves but never before detected on a star's surface.
- The telescope resolved structures as small as 20 kilometers, equivalent to identifying a one euro coin from 180 kilometers away; astronomers noted the swirls resemble patterns in Vincent van Gogh's 'The Starry Night' and Hokusai's 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa'.
- These vortices may explain how the Sun stores and releases magnetic energy, potentially driving coronal mass ejections and helping resolve questions about the Sun's rapidly changing 11-year activity cycle.
- MPS scientist Michiel van Noort noted that detecting these 20-kilometer structures pushes current technology limits, as researchers believe understanding these processes is essential for forecasting solar behaviors that threaten Earth's satellites, GPS systems, and power grids.
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Scientists have taken the most detailed images of the Sun's surface ever, revealing its unusual and extremely dynamic appearance - ripples on the surface reminiscent of Van Gogh's Starry Night.
The Sun has seen gold bands and vortexes in the most detailed images ever captured of our star's troubled surface. Astronomers have observed the Sun with the help of Hawaii's most powerful Inouye solar telescope, and have identified new formations with a width of less than 20 km in an active magnetic region near a solar spot, reports The Guardian.
New images of the sun show its surface in the finest detail yet - WXXV News 25
By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have captured images of the sun’s surface in the finest detail yet, revealing a strange and dynamic facade. It’s dangerous to look directly at the sun without proper eye protection. But researchers were able to peek at its scorching surface with the help of the National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, located on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Scientists originally took the…
The sharpest pictures ever taken of the Sun show it swirling
The surface of the Sun has been photographed in more detail than ever before, and it turns out to be covered in whirlpools. Victoria Gill reports for BBC News on the most detailed images of the Sun yet, taken by the Inouye Solar Telescope on a high peak in Hawaii and published in the journal Nature. — Read the rest The post The sharpest pictures ever taken of the Sun show it swirling appeared first on Boing Boing.
The sun is covered in tiny whirlpools we’ve never seen before
Scientists have discovered incredibly tiny plasma whirlpools swirling across the Sun’s surface, some just 20 kilometers wide. These previously invisible vortices may twist magnetic fields and help build up the energy released in small solar eruptions called nanoflares. They may also help magnetic fields spread through the Sun’s atmosphere far faster than current models can explain.
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