A team of researchers led by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan discovered unexpectedly intricate magnetic structures above quiet-sun regions by observing the sun with the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise-III during its 2024 flight in Earth’s stratosphere. The work is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Threads within the magnetic canopy Sunrise-III observations revealed thin, elongated, thread-like magnetic structures embedded within the magnetic canopy above a quiet-sun region. The magnetic canopy forms in the solar atmosphere (chromosphere) as magnetic fields concentrated at the solar surface (photosphere) arc outward with increasing altitude, creating an arch of magnetic structures.

The new observations show that this canopy is not a simple, uniformly expanding structure but instead contains numerous thin, elongated magnetic substructures.