The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has produced the highest resolution image of the sun's surface ever taken. In this picture, taken at 789 nanometers (nm), we can see features as small as 30km (18 miles) in size for the first time ever. The image shows a pattern of turbulent, “boiling” gas that covers the entire sun. The cell-like structures -- each about the size of Texas -- are the signature of violent motions that transport heat from the inside of the sun to its surface. Hot solar material (plasma) rises in the bright centers of “cells,” cools off and then sinks below the surface in dark lanes in a process known as convection. In these dark lanes we can also see the tiny, bright markers of magnetic fields. Never before seen to this clarity, these bright specks are thought to channel energy up into the outer layers of the solar atmosphere called the corona. These bright spots may be at the core of why the solar corona is more than a million degrees.

Credit: NSO/AURA/NSF

The NSF's Inouye Solar Telescope images the sun in more detail than we’ve ever seen before. The telescope can image a region of the sun 38,000km wide. Close up, these images show large cell-like structures hundreds of kilometers across and, for the first time, the smallest features ever seen on the solar surface, some as small as 30km. Background image: NSO Integrated Synoptic Program/GONG.

Credit: NSO/AURA/NSF

Infographic: World-class instruments combine for a new era of solar astronomy. PDF version: nsf.gov/news/special_reports/solarscience/DKIST-proof6.pdf

Credit: NSF

Major milestones in NSF-funded solar astronomy. PDF version: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/solarscience/Timeline-Solar%20Astronomy-FINAL.pdf

Credit: NSF