Solar Spotting

Using the Swedish Solar Telescope, a ground-based observatory, Goran Scharmer and colleagues probe the penumbra—that’s the stringy structure around the perimeter of the dark part of the sunspot. The images give scientists new insight into how that structure forms.

Credits

Images: NASA/SDO, Institute for Solar Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. AAAS/Science. music by Malloc Baldwin

Meet the Producer

About Flora Lichtman

Flora Lichtman was the host of the podcast Every Little Thing. She’s a former Science Friday multimedia producer.