Overview

• The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope’s Visible Broadband Imager captured G-band images at better than 0.03 arcsecond resolution, resolving striations just 20 kilometers across solar granule walls.
• Alternating bright and dark lines arise from curtain-like sheets of magnetic fields that modulate plasma density and opacity along the photosphere.
• Observations confirm subtle Wilson depressions, showing localized magnetic pressure depresses the visible solar surface by a few kilometers.
• High-fidelity magnetohydrodynamic simulations align with the new images, validating models of fine-scale solar magnetism.
• These insights come as the Sun reaches solar maximum, offering refined inputs for predicting flares, coronal mass ejections and related space weather impacts on Earth.