Tiny jets escape the Sun

This mosaic of images shows a multitude of tiny jets of material escaping from the Sun’s outer atmosphere. The images come from the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft. They show up as dark streaks across the solar surface in this mosaic. The images are ‘negatives’ meaning that although the jets are displayed as dark, they are bright flashes against the solar surface. Each jet lasts between 20 and 100 seconds, and expels charged particles, known as plasma, at around 100 km/s. These events could be the long-sought-after source of the ‘solar wind’, the constant outflow of charged particles that comes from the Sun and flows through the Solar System.

In this collage of images, the Sun’s south pole is to the left.

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[Image description: A grid of 8 x 6 square images each showing one or more dark streaks in various orientations against a grainy yellow-white background. They represent bright flashes on the Sun that may be responsible for generating the solar wind.]