Inouye Solar Telescope Reveals Hidden Vortexes on Sun's Surface

The world's most powerful solar telescope captured Kelvin-Helmholtz instability on the Sun — tiny plasma whirlpools that may explain how the corona heats to millions of degrees and fuels space weather.

The world's most powerful solar telescope has captured a phenomenon on the Sun's surface that scientists had long theorized but never directly observed: Kelvin-Helmholtz instability — tiny, swirling plasma vortexes rippling everywhere along the boundaries of magnetic regions, resembling Van Gogh's Starry Night in motion.

Using the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on Maui's Haleakalā summit, an international team from the National Solar Observatory, NCAR's High Altitude Observatory, and Germany's Max Planck Institute identified whirlpool-like patterns at scales of just 50–65 kilometers across — features only visible thanks to the telescope's four-meter mirror and adaptive optics. Computer simulations independently confirmed the observations, and the findings were published this week in Nature. "We believe that the discovery of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the solar photosphere is a major step forward in our understanding of the dynamics and evolution of solar and stellar plasma," said Dr. David Boboltz, NSO Deputy Director, in the NSO press release.

The discovery may help crack one of solar physics' longest-standing puzzles: why the Sun's corona reaches millions of degrees while the surface below sits at only about 5,500°C. The vortexes appear to act as a constant engine twisting magnetic field lines — building tension that eventually snaps in solar flares and coronal mass ejections, the space weather events that can disrupt satellites, GPS, and power grids. "For decades, seeing these vortices at such tiny scales remained elusive," Dr. Jacqueline Keane of the NSF told CBS News. The Inouye telescope, she said, "delivers the resolving power needed to reveal these ultrafine details for the first time, enabling discoveries that were once beyond our reach."