Stunning Sun Photos Captured by Earth's Most Powerful Telescope.

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) has captured high-resolution images of the sun's three-layered atmosphere, including rare glimpses of decaying sunspots. The telescope used a powerful camera called the Visible-Broadband Imager to capture fine features on the sun's surface, revealing dark, relatively cool patches where strong magnetic fields reside. Scientists hope to use this data to answer some of the biggest questions about the sun, such as why its outer atmosphere is much hotter than its visible surface and how its magnetic fields abruptly reshape and blast out powerful jets of plasma from the solar atmosphere.