Overview

• The telescope’s Visible Broadband Imager achieved 0.03-arcsecond resolution, resolving striations just 20 kilometers wide along solar granule walls.
• Alternating bright and dark lines trace curtain-like sheets of magnetic fields that ripple across the photosphere.
• Subtle magnetic fluctuations of about a hundred gauss alter plasma opacity and create minute Wilson depressions in the solar surface.
• Comparison with cutting-edge magnetohydrodynamic simulations confirmed the striations’ magnetic origins and detailed their formation.
• Understanding these fine-scale structures is expected to improve models of solar eruptions and enhance protection of Earth’s technology-dependent systems.