Icarus – the character in Greek Mythology – had melted his wings as he flew too close to the Sun to catch a closer look at the burning star, but thanks to modern telescopes and a dedicated photographer, netizens can see what the Sun looks like in a much finer detail without putting their lives on stake. Due to the Sun's extremely hot temperatures, where myriad nuclear fusion reactions take place simultaneously, it is not possible to send a spacecraft too close to it to study the star. However, powerful telescopes give us the ability to capture a finer vision of the centre of the solar system. Harnessing this power of the telescope, photographer Andrew McCarthy who runs the Instagram account @cosmic_background, shared a spectacular picture of the Sun last week. It is unlike any other image of the Sun you have ever seen. A Daily Mail report stated that McCarthy claimed this to have been his clearest ever photo of the sun.
The picture captures the star in an amazing amount of detail. One can see the entire surface of the Sun filled with fiery swirls, fusillades of nuclear fusion reactions. In one of the pictures shared by McCarthy, there are visible black spots that are inverted to represent especially bright areas on the surface, and there are even some visible solar flares splashing away from it.
To the naked eye, the Sun just looks like a plain yellow spot in the sky emanating the life-giving sunlight. However, McCarthy’s images present the viewers with a new perspective of the star. The Sun is shown as rich, and a sweltering swirling ball of light and heat that looks all the more intimidating at a closer distance.
Sharing the image on the social media platform, McCarthy wrote, “A detailed look at our star. Swipe to move in closer. Yesterday I captured around 150,000 extremely magnificent images of the Sun using a modified telescope. Combined, those photos allowed me to see the Sun in incredible detail. In fact, this image is 300 megapixels.”
The photographer also informed his followers that they can view the full size of the image on his Patreon account and can also grab a print of the image through the link in his bio for a limited time.
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