Published new photos of the Sun with incredible detail (9 photos)

At a glance, these rich bright yellow shots can be easily mistaken for close-up photographs of honeycombs. However, on the very In fact, these images were obtained using the world's most powerful solar telescope and show the surface of the Sun in incredible detail.





The new images were taken from the Daniel K. Inoui, the world's most powerful ground-based solar telescope located on the Hawaiian island of Maui. National Science Foundation (NSF) called the resulting images showing sunspots the size of more of the Earth "exciting science underway".







NSF explains that the telescope's unique ability to collect data with unprecedented detail will help scientists studying the Sun, better understand its magnetic field and the causes of solar storms. Recently the open telescope is in the commissioning phase (OCP), period training and transition, during which the observatory is slowly brought to its full operational capability.





The new images show various sunspots and quieter regions of the Sun, obtained using broadband Visible Imager (VBI), one of the tools first generation telescope. Sunspots are dark and cool regions on the "surface" of the Sun, known as the photosphere, where strong magnetic fields persist. Sunspots vary in size, but many of them are the size of the Earth, if not more.

Complex sunspots or groups of sunspots can be a source of explosive phenomena such as flares and emissions coronal masses that cause solar storms. These energy and eruptive phenomena affect the outermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere, heliosphere, with the potential to impact the Earth and our critical infrastructure.





In quiet regions of the Sun, images show convection cells in the photosphere showing a bright pattern of hot, rising plasma, surrounded by darker bands of colder, descending solar plasma. In the atmospheric layer above the photosphere, called chromosphere, we see dark elongated fibrils originating from places small-scale accumulations of the magnetic field.





Pictures are only a small part of the data obtained from Cycle 1 observation windows. Inoui Solar Telescope Data Center will continue to calibrate and provide data to scientists and the public, including "spectacular views of the most influential celestial body in our solar system".