Superhot solar mystery may be solved

Fountainlike jets of hot gas that shoot into the sun’s outer atmosphere may explain why this outlying region is millions of degrees hotter than the sun’s roiling surface — a puzzle that researchers have struggled to explain since they first took the solar corona’s temperature seven decades ago.

The newly discovered jets, too narrow and short-lived to have been seen with older instruments, were imaged in visible light by a high-resolution telescope aboard Japan’s Hinode craft, laun