Uploaded January 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is the largest solar telescope on Earth, with a huge 4-meter mirror. It can make incredible high-resolution images of the Sun, seeing details as small as 30 kilometers! This wide-angle video shows images taken over just ten minutes, where you can see "granules" — really, the tops of huge towers of hot plasma that reach down for nearly 200,000 km into the Sun — where rising hot plasma bursts up, cools, and sinks back down. The biggest granules here are larger than Texas, and the entire field of view is a staggering 36,500 km wide, nearly three times wider than Earth!
Credit: NSO/NSF/AURA
Original video: https://www.nso.edu/telescopes/dkist/first-light-full-field-movie/
Read more: syfy.com/syfywire/the-sun-up-close-and-very-personal-first-light-for-the-daniel-k-inouye-solar-telescope
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is the largest solar telescope on Earth, with a huge 4-meter mirror. It can make incredible high-resolution images of the Sun, seeing details as small as 30 kilometers! This wide-angle video shows images taken over just ten minutes, where you can see "granules" — really, the tops of huge towers of hot plasma that reach down for nearly 200,000 km into the Sun — where rising hot plasma bursts up, cools, and sinks back down. The biggest granules here are larger than Texas, and the entire field of view is a staggering 36,500 km wide, nearly three times wider than Earth!
Credit: NSO/NSF/AURA
Original video: https://www.nso.edu/telescopes/dkist/first-light-full-field-movie/
Read more: syfy.com/syfywire/the-sun-up-close-and-very-personal-first-light-for-the-daniel-k-inouye-solar-telescope
