{"id":840277,"date":"2026-09-08T05:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T05:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/840277\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T05:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T05:56:08","slug":"kelvin-helmholtz-instabilities-found-to-drive-plasma-mixing-on-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/840277\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelvin\u2013Helmholtz Instabilities Found To Drive Plasma Mixing On The Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As easy as the Sun is to observe, it\u2019s simultaneously very hard to study due to how extreme the conditions are, even on the surface of a rather unassuming star. One of these study topics is the interaction between the Sun\u2019s plasma and magnetic field, as this drives much of the dynamism of the Sun\u2019s surface layer (i.e., the photosphere). Recent observations by the 4-meter solar telescope in Hawaii have now led to interesting new findings, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-026-10871-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">detailed in a paper<\/a> in\u00a0Nature by [David Kuridze] et al.<\/p>\n<p>Despite popular portrayal, this photosphere is not a boiling liquid, but rather pockets of plasma at various temperatures. The plasma moves within the magnetic field and convective movements that create the \u2018boiling\u2019 pattern, which gives the illusion of a boiling liquid surface.<\/p>\n<p>Within this photosphere, [Kuridze] et al. were able to observe <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kelvin%E2%80%93Helmholtz_instability\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities<\/a>, which are fluid instabilities caused by velocity shearing in either a continuous fluid or due to a velocity difference between two fluids. This is also observed in clouds in Earth\u2019s atmosphere, where they cause the billowing effect, somewhat similar to watching a boiling liquid.<\/p>\n<p>In a MURaM simulation (see heading image), these findings were confirmed, showing how these instabilities drive the transport of plasma in the Sun\u2019s photosphere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As easy as the Sun is to observe, it\u2019s simultaneously very hard to study due to how extreme&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[199,79],"class_list":["post-840277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}