Astronomers capture highest-resolution image ever of the Sun's surface

Posted by layer8 10 hours ago

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Comment by lucgommans 8 hours ago

Figure 1c from the paper[1] looked like it would make a great desktop background, but the resolution on the web is mediocre and there is this dashed rectangle to indicate the extent of the d-f subimages. In the PDF, the rectangle is drawn on top as a separate object so you can easily extract the underlying object!

Here are the figure 1 a-c images, lossless as they are in the PDF, having cropped a few transparent pixels for each one: https://lucgommans.nl/tmp/doi_10.1038_s41586-026-10871-3_fig... https://lucgommans.nl/tmp/doi_10.1038_s41586-026-10871-3_fig... https://lucgommans.nl/tmp/doi_10.1038_s41586-026-10871-3_fig...

edit: supplementary video 2 has a panel similar to figure 1b in 10% higher resolution, screenshot: https://lucgommans.nl/tmp/doi_10.1038_s41586-026-10871-3_sup...

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10871-3.pdf

Comment by dotfrag 9 hours ago

In the abstract, they're stating that the magnetic field of the sun is what's causing the surface to look as if it's wind-swept -- is that right? Am I reading that correctly? So the extensive shifting of the magnetic field is causing the visual distortion?

Comment by ChrisArchitect 9 hours ago

Comment by ck2 9 hours ago

astrophysics is really making some remarkable leaps this decade

("Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research" sounds so wonderfully Star Trek doesn't it)

Comment by sph 9 hours ago

> astrophysics is really making some remarkable leaps this decade

— Eudoxus of Cnidus, 4th century BC