DKIST telescope reveals tiny plasma whirlpools on the Sun's surface

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the National Science Foundation have discovered thousands of tiny plasma whirlpools on the Sun's surface. Using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), the largest operational solar telescope in the world, scientists were able to resolve structures as small as 20 kilometers wide.

These vortices are located at the edges of solar granules, which are larger structures typically measuring between 500 and 2,000 kilometers in width. The discovery suggests that these movements are caused by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities, a fluid dynamics phenomenon that occurs when two fluids move past each other at different velocities, creating shear forces.

These findings are significant because they may provide new insights into how the Sun transports and releases magnetic energy, potentially explaining the mechanisms behind solar flares.