The Sun's Surface in 3D

How smooth is the Sun? The new Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope , deployed in the Canary Islands only last year, allows imaging of objects less than 100-km across on the Sun's surface . When pointed toward the Sun's edge , surface objects now begin to block each other, indicating true three- dimensional information. Close inspection of the image reveals much vertical information, including spectacular light-bridges rising nearly 500-km above the floor of sunspots near the top of the image. Also visible in the above false-color image are hundreds of bubbling granules , each about 1000-km across, and small bright regions known as faculas .