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The Inouye Solar Telescope captured this image of a solar flare on August 8, 2024. (Image credit: NSF\/NSO\/AURA, CC-BY<\/a>)<\/p>\n The world’s largest solar telescope just captured the highest-resolution images of a solar flare<\/a> to date \u2014 and they’re spectacular.<\/p>\n Researchers trained the Hawaii-based Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope<\/a> on the final stages of a powerful X-class solar flare on Aug. 8, 2024, capturing detailed images of chaotic loops of plasma at the sun’s surface. The observations could help scientists understand the mechanics of solar flares and improve predictions of future flares.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “This is the first time the Inouye Solar Telescope has ever observed an X-class flare,” study coauthor Cole Tamburri<\/a>, a solar physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement<\/a>. “These flares are among the most energetic events our star produces, and we were fortunate to catch this one under perfect observing conditions.”<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Solar flares<\/a> are massive bursts of light emitted by the sun during solar storms. Twisting magnetic fields create large, bundled loops of plasma called arcades that extend into the corona \u2014 the hot, outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere. When the magnetic fields<\/a> get so convoluted that they snap back into place (a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection), the sun blasts particles and energy in the form of solar flares into space. When aimed at Earth, energy from the flares can disrupt radio communications and spacecraft orbiting our planet.<\/p>\n Related: Bottom of the sun becomes visible to humans for the first time in history (photos)<\/a><\/p>\n But scientists don’t know the size of the plasma loops that make up these arcades. Previous observations of the individual loops have been limited by the resolutions of older solar telescopes.<\/p>\n