Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The incredible images from the Inouye Solar Telescope showing the surface of the Sun in the most detail we’ve ever seen, which revealed a long suspected phenomena on the Sun the results of which were published by Kurdize and collaborators this month.
We saw some of the first images from the telescope back in 2020 showing how the Sun’s surface is almost granular, like lots of little cells all intersecting.
And if you zoom in again on the edges of those cells, pushing the telescope to the limits of what its capable of doing, you get the image that’s been released this month along with a timelapse of images, each taken with an exposure time of just 100 micro seconds because of how bright the Sun is. And what these images reveal is these little vortices on the edges of these cells where hot material is interacting with colder material.
These vortices are called Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities, named after two 19th century physicists who predicted this would happen when two fluids slide past each other at different speeds, the friction between them rolls them into these spiraling vortex patterns.
That shows up most often for us here on Earth in shapes of clouds, always so much fun when you spot this. But we can also see it in Jupiter’s atmosphere too, and Saturn’s atmosphere.
And it’s long been predicted to happen on the surface of the Sun too, and now thanks to the Inouye telescope, we’ve seen it there too.
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com
Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst
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📚 My book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): lnk.to/DrBecky
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👕 My merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): dr-becky.teemill.com
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🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive
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🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video!
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👩🏽💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
drbecky.uk.com
The incredible images from the Inouye Solar Telescope showing the surface of the Sun in the most detail we’ve ever seen, which revealed a long suspected phenomena on the Sun the results of which were published by Kurdize and collaborators this month.
We saw some of the first images from the telescope back in 2020 showing how the Sun’s surface is almost granular, like lots of little cells all intersecting.
And if you zoom in again on the edges of those cells, pushing the telescope to the limits of what its capable of doing, you get the image that’s been released this month along with a timelapse of images, each taken with an exposure time of just 100 micro seconds because of how bright the Sun is. And what these images reveal is these little vortices on the edges of these cells where hot material is interacting with colder material.
These vortices are called Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities, named after two 19th century physicists who predicted this would happen when two fluids slide past each other at different speeds, the friction between them rolls them into these spiraling vortex patterns.
That shows up most often for us here on Earth in shapes of clouds, always so much fun when you spot this. But we can also see it in Jupiter’s atmosphere too, and Saturn’s atmosphere.
And it’s long been predicted to happen on the surface of the Sun too, and now thanks to the Inouye telescope, we’ve seen it there too.
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com
Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst
---
📚 My book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): lnk.to/DrBecky
---
👕 My merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): dr-becky.teemill.com
---
🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive
---
🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video!
---
👩🏽💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
drbecky.uk.com
