You’ve probably seen the Sun a thousand times, usually as a blinding white-yellow orb that you definitely shouldn't stare at. But when you see close up images of the sun from a telescope like the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) in Hawaii, things get weird. It doesn't look like fire. Honestly, it looks like a bubbling pot of gold-plated popcorn or a shag carpet made of plasma. It's alien. It’s violent. And it is arguably the most complex physics laboratory in our solar system.
The Sun isn't a solid object. It’s a ball of plasma held together by gravity, and those "kernels" you see in high-resolution shots are actually the size of Texas. Each one. Think about that for a second. We’re looking at convection cells where hot plasma rises from the interior, cools off at the surface, and then sinks back down in those dark lanes between the granules.
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope changed everything
Before 2020, our best shots of the solar surface were a bit blurry. Then the DKIST came online on the summit of Haleakalā, Maui. It uses a 4-meter mirror—the world's largest for a solar telescope—to resolve features as small as 20 kilometers. That sounds big, but on the scale of the Sun, it’s like being able to see a coin on the ground from miles away.
When the first close up images of the sun from DKIST were released, solar physicists were floored. They didn't just see the popcorn texture; they saw the magnetic "bright points." These are tiny structures that act as channels for energy to travel into the outer layers of the solar atmosphere, known as the corona. This is where the real mystery lies. For some reason that still bugs scientists, the Sun's surface is about 6,000 degrees Celsius, but the corona—which is further away—is millions of degrees. It’s like walking away from a campfire and getting hotter.
The cooling system for this telescope is a feat of engineering itself. You’re essentially pointing a giant magnifying glass at the Sun. If they didn't have eight miles of piping distributing cooling grain, the telescope would literally melt. They use ice—tons of it created at night—to keep the optics stable during the day. It’s a brute-force approach to high-tech photography.
What we’re actually seeing in those "popcorn" shots
Those cell-like structures are called granules. They are the tops of convection cells.
Hot plasma rushes up in the bright center of the granule. It spreads out, loses heat by radiating it into space, and then becomes denser. Because it’s denser, it sinks. Those dark "cracks" between the granules are the falling, cooler plasma.
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Even "cool" plasma is still incredibly hot, but in the context of the Sun, temperature is relative. If you could somehow pull a sunspot away from the Sun and put it in the night sky, it would shine brighter than the full moon. It only looks black in close up images of the sun because the surrounding area is so much more intense.
Sunspots and magnetic knots
When you zoom in on a sunspot, the geometry changes. You see the umbra (the dark heart) and the penumbra (the radial, thread-like structures surrounding it). These are areas where the magnetic field is so incredibly strong that it actually chokes off the convection. The hot plasma can't get through. It's a magnetic dam.
Scientists like Dr. Thomas Rimmele, the director of the DKIST project, have pointed out that these magnetic fields are the key to understanding space weather. When those magnetic lines get twisted and suddenly snap—a process called magnetic reconnection—they launch solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). If one of those hits Earth, it can fry satellites and knock out power grids. This isn't just pretty photography; it's a giant early warning system.
The Parker Solar Probe: Getting "too close" for comfort
While DKIST looks from the ground, NASA's Parker Solar Probe is literally flying through the Sun’s atmosphere. It’s the fastest human-made object ever. It’s built with a carbon-composite heat shield that stays relatively cool while the front of it glows red at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
Parker has given us a different kind of "close up." It’s measuring "switchbacks"—sudden S-shaped kinks in the solar wind’s magnetic field that whip the plasma around. Before Parker, we didn't know these existed because by the time the solar wind reaches Earth, those kinks have smoothed out.
Seeing the Sun from the inside out has changed the narrative. We used to think the solar wind was a steady stream. Now we know it’s a chaotic, gusty mess of bursts and pops. It’s more like a sprinkler system that’s malfunctioning than a garden hose.
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Why the images look orange or gold
Here is a little secret: the Sun is white.
If you were in space, the Sun would look like a pure white ball. We see it as yellow because our atmosphere scatters shorter wavelengths (blue/violet) more easily. But in close up images of the sun, the colors are often "false color."
Photographers and scientists choose specific filters to highlight different elements.
- Gold/Yellow: Usually represents the continuum or visible light, showing the photosphere (the surface).
- Deep Red: Often H-alpha filters, which look at hydrogen gas and show the "spicules" and "fibrils" in the chromosphere.
- Purple/Blue/Green: These are usually Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) shots from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Since humans can't see UV light, they assign it a bright color so we can see where the super-heated gas is moving along magnetic loops.
Using these specific filters allows us to peel back the layers of the Sun like an onion. You can look at just the magnetic fields, or just the iron-rich plasma, or just the surface texture.
The challenges of solar photography
You can't just point a Nikon at the Sun and hope for the best. Even for hobbyists, solar imaging is a specialized field. You need a "solar wedge" or a specialized H-alpha telescope like a Coronado or a Lunt. These filters only allow a tiny, specific sliver of light—about 0.05 nanometers wide—to pass through.
The "seeing" conditions are the biggest enemy. Because the Sun heats the ground, it creates rising heat waves in our own atmosphere. This makes the image shimmy and blur. Pro observatories get around this by using Adaptive Optics. They have a mirror that deforms hundreds of times per second to cancel out the atmospheric turbulence. It’s basically like a real-time "un-blur" button.
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Moving beyond the surface: The Chromosphere
Just above the "popcorn" surface is the chromosphere. It’s thinner and more transparent than the photosphere. In close up images of the sun focused on this layer, you see "spicules." These are giant spikes of plasma that shoot up at 60 miles per second.
They look like blades of grass in a field, but they are thousands of miles long. For decades, we didn't know how they formed. Recent data suggests they are created by "magnetic snap-backs" where the magnetic field lines under the surface get squeezed and then recoil, flinging plasma upward.
Solar Cycle 25 and what to expect next
The Sun goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. We are currently in Solar Cycle 25, heading toward "Solar Maximum." This means more sunspots, more flares, and better opportunities for close up images of the sun.
During solar maximum, the Sun’s magnetic poles actually flip. North becomes South, and vice versa. It’s a messy process. The magnetic field lines get tangled like a ball of yarn that a cat played with. This leads to massive sunspot groups—some so big you could see them with the naked eye (through a solar filter, please!).
The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter is currently working with Parker to get simultaneous views. Solar Orbiter is actually going to fly out of the ecliptic plane to take the first-ever images of the Sun’s poles. We’ve never seen the top or bottom of the Sun. We have no idea what the "crown" of our star looks like, though we expect it to be a weird landscape of "coronal holes" where the solar wind escapes at high speeds.
Actionable steps for exploring the Sun yourself
You don't need a multi-billion dollar telescope to see the Sun's details, though it certainly helps. If you're interested in keeping track of what’s happening on our star, here is how you can get started:
- Visit SpaceWeather.com: This is the gold standard for daily updates. They post the latest close up images of the sun from the SDO and notify you of upcoming solar flares or auroras.
- Check the SDO "The Sun Now" page: NASA provides real-time imagery in over 10 different wavelengths. You can see the Sun in "real-time" (with a slight delay for data processing) and watch sunspots rotate across the disk.
- Invest in a Solar Filter: If you own a telescope or even a pair of binoculars, you must buy a certified ISO 12312-2 solar filter. Looking through an unfiltered lens will cause permanent blindness in milliseconds.
- Look for "Solar H-alpha" groups on social media: There is a massive community of "backyard" solar photographers who produce images that rival professional observatories from 20 years ago. They use "lucky imaging" techniques—taking thousands of frames of video and using software to pick only the sharpest ones to stack.
- Download a Solar Activity App: Search for "Solar Activity" or "Aurora" in your app store. These apps use data from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center to tell you when a flare has occurred and if it's likely to cause an aurora in your area.
The Sun is a dynamic, living laboratory. Every time we zoom in, we realize how little we actually know about the fluid dynamics of plasma. We are currently in a golden age of solar physics, and the images coming back in the next two years as we hit solar maximum are likely to be the most detailed in human history.