J. R. Hu

Deep beneath Japan's Mount Ikeno sits a tank holding 50,000 tons of the purest water. Inside, it catches neutrinos — ghostly particles that zip through Earth as if it weren't there. When a star explodes in our galaxy, neutrinos arrive first, hours before the light.

Inside every atom lives a proton. For a long time, it was considered as eternal as matter itself. But theories that unify all forces of nature predict that, sooner or later, the proton will decay. The only question is how long we have to wait. In the Japanese detector Super-Kamiokande — a giant tank of ultra-pure water — physicists searched for signs of such a decay.

The Sun continuously scribbles magnetic fields across its surface. These patterns are not mere ripples but a handwriting in which nature has encoded warnings of flares. A flare is an explosion that releases the energy of billions of nuclear bombs in minutes, ejecting streams of plasma and radiation into space.

Each morning, dozens of telescopes swing toward the Sun. Their cameras catch a narrow band of red light — the Hα line, discovered by Johann Balmer. The images reveal dark, whimsically curved threads. They look like stitches in a giant tapestry sewn through the blazing corona.