We caught an ocean of plasma waves “breaking” on the Sun

The Sun is so much more than a shining ball of energetic plasma.

Its fluid surface is ocean-like: with plasma currents flowing, cooling, and colliding.

In physics, whenever two fluids flow past or through each other, instabilities arise.

Shear forces create turbulent fluid flows, eddy currents, and vortices.

The underlying mechanism — the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability — arises in ocean waves,

terrestrial clouds,

and in the atmospheres of gas giant worlds.

These long-predicted instabilities have previously been detected within solar outflows.

However, simulations predict such instabilities should arise within the Sun itself.

If true, they’d help explain the high observed temperature of the Sun’s outer corona.

They’d also provide a mechanism for building and transporting magnetic energy across the Sun.

Only DKIST — the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope — has sufficient resolution to find out.

Since its 2020-2022 commissioning, it reveals the smallest-scale features ever seen on the solar photosphere.

Its time-lapse imagery and videos showcase small-scale, dynamically changing swirls.

The deformed, changing boundaries of magnetic elements within the Sun are apparent.

The ultra-fine scale stripes, at those boundaries, also arise from Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities.

These views match exquisitely with physics-based simulations.

DKIST’s scientific importance, as Earth’s only ground-based flagship heliophysics observatory, cannot be overstated.

Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words.

This article We caught an ocean of plasma waves “breaking” on the Sun is featured on Big Think.