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
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About Flora Lichtman
Flora Lichtman is a host of Science Friday. In a previous life, she lived on a research ship where apertivi were served on the top deck, hoisted there via pulley by the ship’s chef.