Haisheng Ji

A tightly twisted phone cord snaps and scatters sparks. Magnetic fields on the Sun behave the same way: they twist, break, and reconnect, powering flares. For the first time, astronomers have witnessed this process directly. One loop was twisted by 540 degrees — one full turn and then half again. That’s three times more than previously thought possible.

A sunspot, a dark island on the fiery surface, lives its own turbulent life. Beneath it, in invisible depths, giant magnetic loops drift like twisted cables. When such a loop emerges, it can discharge as a flare, and hurl clouds of charged particles into space. Scientists have long tried to understand what determines the strength and suddenness of these events.