On Wednesday, astronomers released what they said were the most detailed images ever taken of the surface of our sun. As seen through the brand-new Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, the sun looks like a boiling pot of popcorn, belying the notion of a bland yellow orb. Seen from afar, stars are gentle twinkling harbingers of romance and of the mysterious secret order of the universe. Every second, thermonuclear reactions in the center of the Sun turn 5 million tons of hydrogen into pure energy. That energy makes its way outward, through boiling gas pocked with magnetic storms that crackle, whirl and lash space with showers of electrical particles and radiation.

Source: New York Times January 29, 2020 21:22 UTC