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What does a whirlpool look like on the Sun? And what could something so small tell us about a star?
Join T. M. Engh for Tiny Whirlpools on the Sun, a short special from Under the Same Sky. Using observations from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaiʻi, we follow delicate curls along the boundaries of solar magnetic regions and explore the physics that could explain them.
You’ll hear how neighboring flows can roll into waves, why similar patterns appear in clouds here on Earth, and how scientists compare telescope observations with computer simulations. We’ll also explore why these motions matter to questions about magnetic energy and the Sun’s surprisingly hot outer atmosphere, without pretending one discovery has solved the whole mystery.
Through the Lens: Use the NSO article’s “Full View” movie on a screen. Follow one small boundary, pause, restart and track the same curl again. Can you distinguish it from its neighbors? No speed calculation is needed. Watch the observations-and-simulation comparison and check which view is observed and which is calculated. Describe one similarity and one thing the simulation shows that the telescope image alone cannot tell you. Without a screen, save this question for later: what would you need to measure to explain the curl?
No direct solar viewing or camera is needed. Never look at the Sun through an unfiltered camera, telescope or binoculars; eclipse glasses do not make that safe. For solar observing another time, get expert guidance and correctly filtered equipment designed for the task.
Sources and further reading:
National Solar Observatory: Discovery article, “Full View” observation movie, and observations-and-simulation comparison https://nso.edu/press-release/nsf-inouye-solar-telescope-enables-major-discovery-of-a-hidden-solar-process/
Original research by Kuridze and colleagues: Ubiquitous Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities driving plasma mixing on the Sun https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13489961/
NASA: Sun Facts https://science.nasa.gov/sun/facts/
National Solar Observatory: Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope https://nso.edu/telescopes/inouye-solar-telescope/
NASA: Solar Viewing Safety https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/safety/
The approximately 19-kilometer figure discussed in this episode describes the detail resolved by the observations, not the measured diameter of every vortex. The possible contribution of these motions to coronal heating remains under investigation.
The Sky This Week and Under the Same Sky are T. M. Engh Photography audio productions.
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