World’s Largest Solar Telescope Captures Most Detailed Images Ever of the Sun’s Surface

New images from the world’s most powerful solar telescope have revealed thousands of tiny whirlpools swirling across the sun’s surface — a hidden phenomenon that has eluded scientists for more than 150 years. The highly detailed observations could help explain the sun’s most violent eruptions and provide important clues about one of solar physics’ biggest mysteries.

The time-lapse footage provides the first direct evidence of a long-predicted process known as Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. The phenomenon is named after physicists Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who described it in the 19th century. When two fluids or gases flow past one another at different speeds, friction between the layers creates shear that can roll into spiraling waves and vortices. Scientists had observed this instability in other settings, but this is the first time it has been directly seen on the sun, where the motion occurs between neighboring streams of superheated solar plasma.

Researchers detected the solar vortices with the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii. They then compared the observations with computer simulations of the sun’s visible surface, known as the photosphere. The findings were published Aug. 5 in the journal Nature.

The footage shows dozens of tiny vortices clustered along the edges of magnetically active regions. Some of the whirlpools are accompanied by thin, dark stripes known as striations, according to a statement from the National Science Foundation. The Inouye telescope can resolve structures only tens of miles across, allowing scientists to see details that had remained hidden until now.