The European Space Agency (ESA) has published the most detailed images of the solar surface to date. The images were obtained using the Solar Orbiter, which is a joint development with NASA.
The photographs were taken on March 22, 2023.
“This is the most complete high-resolution image of the visible surface of a star to date.” – the agency said in a statement.
The images show the “surface” of the Sun as it is: bright, hot plasma (charged gas) that is constantly moving. Almost all solar radiation comes from this layer, whose temperature ranges between 4500 and 6000 °C. Beneath it, hot, dense plasma mixes in the Sun’s “convective zone,” similar to the magma in Earth’s mantle. As a result of this movement, the surface of the Sun takes on a grainy appearance.
“The most striking features of the images are the sunspots. In a visible light image they appear as dark spots or holes on a smooth surface. “Sunspots are colder than their surroundings and therefore emit less light.” — clarifies the ESA.
The Solar Orbiter took pictures from a distance of at least 74 million kilometers from the Sun. Each frame is an image of only a small part of the star, so the entire image is a kind of mosaic assembled from 25 frames. .
