{"id":982612,"date":"2026-08-05T15:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/982612\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T15:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:56:14","slug":"scientists-photograph-the-suns-surface-in-the-finest-detail-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/982612\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists photograph the sun’s surface in the finest detail yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Scientists have captured images<\/a> of the sun\u2019s surface in the finest detail yet, revealing a strange and dynamic facade. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s dangerous to look directly at the sun<\/a> without proper eye protection. But researchers were able to peek at its scorching surface with the help of the National Science Foundation\u2019s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope<\/a>, located on the island of Maui in Hawaii. <\/p>\n

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 realized they\u2019d photographed the sun\u2019s bright outer shell at higher resolution than ever before.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, they saw strange feathery patterns rippling across the surface. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat reminds me of famous paintings, like the swirling skies in Van Gogh\u2019s Starry Night<\/a>,\u201d said solar physicist Ruizhu Chen with Stanford University, who was not involved with the new research.<\/p>\n

Researchers saw ripples of instability on the sun\u2019s surface caused by bits of magnetized plasma moving past each other at different speeds \u2014 similar to waves that stir when a gust of wind blows over water. It\u2019s a well-known phenomenon that guides how fluids move. <\/p>\n

This has been glimpsed on Earth and other planets like Jupiter and Saturn, but \u201cit has not been observed ever at that level on the solar surface,\u201d according to study co-author Friedrich W\u00f6ger with the National Solar Observatory.<\/p>\n

The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, potentially scrambling GPS communications and producing colorful auroras. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Scientists have captured images of the sun\u2019s surface in the finest detail yet, revealing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":982613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[25],"tags":[4514,258367,394379,57,26621,492,27902,159,21951,61,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-982612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-astronomy","tag-daniel-inouye","tag-friedrich-wger","tag-general-news","tag-hawaii","tag-physics","tag-planets","tag-science","tag-trending-news","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117043723664787787","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/982613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}