Sun's Surface Reveals Swirling Vortices in Highest-Resolution Images

Scientists used a very powerful telescope called the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, on the island of Maui in Hawaii, to take the clearest pictures ever of the Sun's surface.

In the pictures, they saw tiny swirling patterns, like little whirlpools, in the hot glowing gas that covers the Sun.

The swirls look a bit like the curly patterns in Vincent van Gogh's famous painting 'The Starry Night.'

Scientists call these swirls Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, which happens when two streams of gas slide past each other at different speeds, making wavy patterns just like wind blowing over water.

It is the first time these swirls have ever been seen on a star.

The swirls grab and twist the Sun's magnetic field, like braiding hair, and when the twisted lines snap, they suddenly release a lot of energy.

That energy can cause giant explosions on the Sun, called solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

Those explosions can send energy toward Earth and affect satellites, GPS, power grids and global communications.

Scientists hope this discovery helps solve the mystery of why the Sun's outer atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface.