Look (safely) at the Sun's surface in the highest-resolution images yet
A European spacecraft is showing us how dynamic the Sun is with newly released images, the highest-resolution images of our star's surface so far.
The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter observes the Sun with six different imaging instruments capturing its many layers, including the photosphere, or the surface of the Sun.
According to the ESA, the images were assembled from observations taken by the Solar Orbiter's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) instrument. The imager takes photos in visible light, maps the magnetic field and records its speed.
The image below shows the magnetic map taken by the PHI.
Below, the PHI captured the speed and direction of the movement of the magnetic field. According to the ESA, this is called a "magnetogram" and shows that the Sun's magnetic field is concentrated around sunspot regions.
"It either points outward (red) or inward (blue) wherever the sunspots lie. The strong magnetic field explains why plasma inside sunspots is colder," the ESA said. "Normally, convection moves heat from inside the Sun to its surface, but this is disrupted by charged particles being forced to follow the dense magnetic field lines in and around the sunspots."
This image shows a map of movement on the Sun taken by ESA's Solar Orbiter PHI instrument. (ESA)
Finally, the image below is a visible light photo of the Sun, revealing hot plasma radiating from the Sun at temperatures between 8,100 and 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
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The sunspots are notable in the image below, looking like black holes because these regions are cooler and emit less light.
The Sun in visible light taken by ESA's Solar Orbiter's PHI instrument. (ESA)
The sunspots are also interesting because they were taken over a year ago. The Sun recently reached solar maximum, a period of peak sunspot activity in an 11-year cycle.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, captured the image below in August. The sun's surface was covered in active sunspot regions, which produce space weather that impacts Earth.
A NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory image of the sunspots observed on Aug. 8, 2024. (NASA)
The PHI instrument team used 25 images captured over four hours to create full-disc images of the Sun. The full mosaic, which has a diameter of nearly 8,000 pixels, can be viewed on ESA's website.
ESA said the first round of mosaics of the Sun's surface was time-consuming to produce, but now that the team better understands the process, the agency plans to release more high-resolution maps of the Sun twice a year.