The sharpest look at the sun's surface
Astronomers have captured the highest-resolution images ever taken of the sun's visible surface. The pictures come from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, the world's largest solar telescope. The images reveal tiny whirlpool-like patterns that have never been seen before. These swirling structures form at the edges of magnetic field concentrations on the photosphere. The patterns are caused by a process called Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, which happens when two layers of fluid move at different speeds.
Why the corona is so hot
The discovery may help solve a long-standing puzzle in solar physics. The sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, reaches temperatures of more than a million degrees. That is far hotter than the surface below it. Scientists have searched for decades for a mechanism that carries energy upward. The new observations suggest the vortices mix plasma and help transport energy into the corona. The swirling motions may also drive the rapid diffusion of magnetic fields on the sun's surface. Current models have struggled to explain that diffusion, and the instability could be a missing piece of the answer.
Simulations match the real sun
The team combined telescope data with computer simulations of solar plasma. The simulations reproduced the observed vortices in detail. Researchers from the National Solar Observatory, the High Altitude Observatory and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research led the work. They describe the results as a new window into the dynamics of the sun and other stars. The paper was published in the journal Nature on August 5, 2026. Understanding these small-scale processes could also improve forecasts of solar flares and space weather that affect satellites and power grids on Earth.