The world's biggest solar telescope caught vortexes on the Sun's surface
The world's biggest solar telescope has captured vortexes on the Sun's surface, confirming a long-held theory about the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. This phenomenon occurs when two fluids slide past each other at different speeds, creating vortexes. The discovery was made possible by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, which has a 4-meter mirror and can resolve details as small as 19 kilometers.
- ▪The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is a phenomenon that occurs when two fluids slide past each other at different speeds, creating vortexes.
- ▪The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is the largest solar telescope in the world, with a 4-meter mirror that allows it to resolve details as small as 19 kilometers.
- ▪The telescope captured images of the Sun's surface at a wavelength of 416 nanometers, revealing vortex-like structures and fine dark striations at the interface between magnetic fields and granulation.
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| Publication time | Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:20:46 +0000 |
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Solar swirlies The world’s biggest solar telescope caught vortexes on the Sun’s surfacevar abtest_2166519 = new ABTest(2166519, 'click'); We expected them to be there, but they had previously been too small to see. Jacek Krywko – Aug 7, 2026 9:20 am | 0 Credit: NASA/Goddard/SDO Credit: NASA/Goddard/SDO Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav Wherever two fluids slide past each other at different speeds, the boundary between them buckles, then curls, then rolls up into vortexes. It’s called the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, and the physics behind it was worked out in the late 1860s.
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