Nasa's Solar Dynamics¹ Observatory² has provided an astonishing new vista³ on our turbulent star.

美国宇航局的太阳动力学观测台拍摄到一组我们的纷扰不安的太阳的令人惊奇的景象。

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SDO sees the Sun's whole disc but can then zoom in to view fine detail

The first public release of images from the satellite record huge explosions and great looping（循环） prominences⁵（突出物，日珥） of gas.

The observatory's super-fine resolution is expected to help scientists get a better understanding of what drives solar activity.

Launched in February on an Atlas⁶ rocket from Cape⁷ Canaveral, SDO is expected to operate for at least five years.

Researchers hope in this time to go a long way towards their eventual⁸ goal of being able to forecast the effects of the Sun's behaviour on Earth.

Solar activity has a profound influence on our planet. Huge eruptions⁹ of charged particles and the emission¹⁰ of intense radiation can disrupt satellite, communication and power systems, and pose a serious health risk to astronauts.

Scientists working on SDO say they are thrilled with the quality of the data received so far.

"When we see these fantastic images, even hard-core solar physicists¹¹ like myself are struck with awe¹²（感到敬畏） , literally," said Lika Guhathakurta, the SDO programme scientist at Nasa Headquarters.

SDO is equipped with three instruments to investigate the physics at work inside, on the surface and in the atmosphere of the Sun.

The probe views the entire solar disc with a resolution 10 times better than the average high-definition television camera. This allows it to pick out features on the surface and in the atmosphere that are as small as 350km across.

The pictures are also acquired at a rapid rate, every few seconds.

In addition, the different wavelengths¹³ in which the instruments operate mean scientists can study the Sun's atmosphere layer by layer.

A key quest will be to probe the inner workings of the solar dynamo（发电机，精力充沛的人） , the deep network of plasma¹⁴（等离子体，血浆） currents that generates the Sun's tangled¹⁵（纠缠的，紊乱的） and sometimes explosive magnetic field.

It is the dynamo that ultimately lies behind all forms of solar activity, from the solar flares¹⁶ that explode in the Sun's atmosphere to the relatively¹⁷ cool patches（补丁，斑块） , or sunspots（太阳黑子，雀斑） , that pock the solar disc and wander across its surface for days or even weeks.

"The SDO images are stunning¹⁸（极好的，使人昏倒的） and the level of detail they reveal will undoubtedly¹⁹ lead to a new branch of research into how the fine-scale solar magnetic fields form and evolve, leading to a much, much better understanding of how solar activity develops," said co-investigator Richard Harrison from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL).

"It's like looking at the details of our star through a microscope," he told BBC News.

And Dr Guhathakurta added: "It's thought that [SDO] is going to revolutionise heliophysics much as the Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionised astrophysics（天体物理学） and cosmology（宇宙论，宇宙学） , which is true. There is however a very key difference. While Hubble is designed to observe almost everything in the cosmos²⁰, SDO is designed to study only one thing and that is our very own star. It is tailor-made for the study of Sun star."