Astronomers at the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on Maui have captured breathtaking images of a solar flare, revealing intricate details that could transform our understanding of solar storms. The observations, made August 8, 2024, showed dark coronal loop strands with unprecedented clarity, averaging 48.2 kilometers in width.
The team used the telescope’s Visible Broadband Imager to isolate light emitted by hydrogen atoms in the lower solar atmosphere, resolving features as small as 24 kilometers – a level of detail more than twice that of the next-best solar telescope. This allowed them to study coronal loops, which are arcs of superheated plasma tracing the Sun’s magnetic field lines.
The images revealed razor-thin magnetic loops, some as thin as 21 kilometers, which could directly inform advanced flare models. The team believes they may have imaged the Sun’s fundamental magnetic building blocks for the first time, confirming long-standing theories that coronal loops can be as narrow as 10 to 100 kilometers.
The research team published their findings in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, with the study titled “Unveiling Unprecedented Fine Structure in Coronal Flare Loops with the DKIST.”
Source: https://mauinow.com/2025/08/26/solar-telescope-on-haleakala-captures-solar-flare-in-unprecedented-detail