{"id":623396,"date":"2026-08-06T10:51:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/623396\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T10:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:51:16","slug":"these-are-the-best-photos-of-the-sun-that-scientists-have-ever-taken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/623396\/","title":{"rendered":"These are the best photos of the sun that scientists have ever taken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SCIENTISTS HAVE CAPTURED images of the sun\u2019s surface in the finest detail yet.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers were able to peek at its scorching surface with the help of the National Science Foundation\u2019s Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope, located on the island of Maui in Hawaii.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786013475_491_.jpeg\"  alt=\"NSF-Daniel-K.-Inouye-Solar-Telescope (1)\" class=\"alignnone inline-image\" \/><br \/>\n            The US National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, built and managed by the NSF National Solar Observatory, in Maui, Hawai\u02bbi.                    NSF \/ NSO\/AURA<\/p>\n<p>    NSF \/ NSO\/AURA \/ NSO\/AURA\n<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s bright outer shell at higher resolution than ever before.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\" xml:lang=\"en\">\u2600\ufe0f Scientists using the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NSF?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">@NSF<\/a> Inouye Solar Telescope have made a major breakthrough in solar physics, discovering Kelvin-Helmholtz instability on the Sun&#8217;s surface\u2014a finding that could help explain explosive solar activity and other solar phenomena: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GHDS3B7UXT\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/GHDS3B7UXT<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yJhD4KecVY\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/yJhD4KecVY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 National Solar Observatory (@NatSolarObs) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NatSolarObs\/status\/2085047255858639182?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">August 5, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>They saw strange feathery patterns rippling across the surface.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers saw ripples of instability on the sun\u2019s surface caused by bits of magnetised plasma moving past each other at different speeds \u2013 similar to waves that stir when a gust of wind blows over water. It is a well-known phenomenon that guides how fluids move.<\/p>\n<p>This has been glimpsed on Earth and other planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, but \u201cit has not been observed ever at that level on the solar surface\u201d, according to study co-author Friedrich Woger with the National Solar Observatory.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786013476_679_.png\"  alt=\"Inouye Image (Hawaii Scale)\" class=\"alignnone inline-image\" \/><br \/>\n            An image with the islands of Hawaii for scale.                    US National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory<\/p>\n<p>    US National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory\n<\/p>\n<p>The findings were published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists are curious about the sun\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>                <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCIENTISTS HAVE CAPTURED images of the sun\u2019s surface in the finest detail yet. Researchers were able to peek&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,8241,6,263427,19,17,11,12,15,16,40579,263428,5,430,4567,17135,33199,7,8],"class_list":["post-623396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-hawaii","tag-headlines","tag-hot-shot","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-national-solar-observatory","tag-news","tag-photos","tag-scientists","tag-sun","tag-telescope","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117048186278274338","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}