Stunning new images offer glimpse of the Sun's surface in unprecedented detail

Stunning new images offer glimpse of the Sun's surface in unprecedented detail Astrophysicists used the world's most powerful solar telescope to capture images of the sun in never-before-seen detail. Scientists using the world's most powerful telescope have managed to capture stunning new photos of the sun's surface with unprecedented levels of detail. Using the National Science Foundation’s Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope, located on the island of Maui in Hawaii, researchers were able to take a peek at the star's scorching surface in a way that has never been achieved before. Scientists originally took the images for a different reason: to fine-tune and test the limits of the telescope. But when they looked at the results, they realised they had photographed the sun's bright outer shell at higher resolution than ever before. Video footage of the findings shows strange, feathery patterns rippling across the surface, along with 'whirlpools' of activity that have never been seen. Researchers saw ripples of instability on the sun's surface caused by bits of magnetised plasma moving past each other at different speeds – similar to waves that stir when a gust of wind blows over water. It is a well-known phenomenon that guides how fluids move. This has been glimpsed on Earth and other planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, but "it has not been observed ever at that level on the solar surface", according to study co-author Friedrich Woger with the National Solar Observatory. The findings were published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. "We've seen the Sun's large-scale events, but we've been missing some of the small-scale physics that power these events - the 'tiny engines' that drive solar activity," Woger said. "The Inouye [telescope] gives us a clearer view of these processes, and KHI may be one of these engines." Scientists are curious about the sun's inner workings to better track massive bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections that can hurl toward Earth. When they hit, they can trigger solar storms, potentially scrambling GPS communications and producing colourful auroras. "To better understand and eventually forecast the Sun’s most disruptive behaviours, we first have to understand the tiny physical processes that drive it," Woger added. "The more of these pieces we find, and in greater detail thanks to powerful tools like the NSF Inouye Solar Telescope, the clearer and more complete our understanding becomes."