Why is the sun’s outer atmosphere so much hotter than the star’s roiling interior? Astronomers hope that the recently launched Hinode spacecraft, which has begun staring at the sun with a trio of telescopes, will help solve that puzzle.
JAXA
JAXA
Hinode’s visible-light telescope shows details of the sun’s turbulent surface, where great plumes of hot gas rise and fall in convection cells to give the surface a mottled, granular appearance.
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