A new breakthrough from astronomers reveals a dazzling world of miniature plasma loops in the lower layers of the Sun's atmosphere. These are so small and short-lived, that they have stayed hidden until now. However, they hold clues to one of the Sun’s deepest mysteries --how it stores and unleashes magnetic energy.

This is based on the paper titled "Unveiling the Dynamics and Genesis of Small-scale Fine-structure Loops in the Lower Solar Atmosphere", by Annu Bura, Tanmoy Samanta, Alphonse C. Sterling, Yajie Chen, Jayant Joshi, Vasyl Yurchyshyn, and Ronald L. Moore, 2025, The Astrophysical Journal, 983, 144.

Press release by PIB published here.

Press release issued by DST here.

Download the paper from here.