First look at tiny solar vortices
Astronomers have detected small plasma vortices on the surface of the sun for the first time. The discovery was made with the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, a four-meter instrument that captures the most detailed views of the sun ever recorded.
The vortices are tiny swirls of plasma that scientists have suspected for years. No telescope was sharp enough to see them until now. Their presence confirms a long-held theory about how energy moves in the sun's outer layers.
A possible path to the corona's heat
The finding may help solve one of the sun's oldest puzzles: why the corona, the sun's outer atmosphere, is much hotter than the surface below it. The corona reaches temperatures of around one million degrees, while the surface sits at roughly 5,500 degrees Celsius.
Researchers believe the newly spotted vortices could carry energy upward into the corona. If confirmed, the process would help explain the huge temperature jump that has puzzled scientists for decades.
What the new images reveal
The telescope captured the highest-resolution image of the solar surface ever taken, at a wavelength of 416 nanometers. The image reveals deformed boundaries of magnetic elements and ultra-fine scale stripes. Both features are linked to a process called Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, which occurs when layers of plasma move past each other at different speeds.
The team plans further observations to measure how much energy the vortices carry. The answers could reshape how scientists model the sun and predict space weather, which affects satellites and power grids on Earth.