See the Sun expand and contract like a pufferfish - January's best science images

"Data from inside the Sun's corona - the outermost layer of its atmosphere - helped astrophysicists to create a sharper picture of the Sun's shifting boundaries than ever before. The corona's outer edge, depicted in this illustration, has a rough, spiky shape that expands and contracts like a pufferfish as the Sun becomes more or less active. The research could help scientists to better predict how solar activity affects Earth's magnetic field, satellites, human health and atmospheric effects such as auroras."

"This photo of a firefly making its way around a particle accelerator was created as a composite image. "Watching its glowing paths is like seeing the streaks of charged particles in a spark chamber or a Cherenkov detector - beautiful, fleeting and absolutely mesmerizing," says Yoshinari Sasaki, whose shot was among this year's crop of nominees for the Global Physics Photowalk 2025. The judges commended the photograph's composition in blending particle physics with Japanese nature."

"Solar storms in January have been the largest in 20 years. Coronal mass ejections and solar flares released charged particles that bombarded Earth's magnetic field, creating spectacular auroras. Southern Lights reached as far north as New Zealand, seen here as a backdrop to this abseiler's decent into an ice cave in South Island's Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. Northern Lights were also seen as far south as the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States."

New measurements from inside the Sun's corona produced a sharper picture of the corona's shifting outer edge, which appears rough and spiky and expands and contracts like a pufferfish as solar activity changes. Improved coronal mapping could enhance predictions of how solar activity affects Earth's magnetic field, satellites, human health and atmospheric phenomena such as auroras. A composite photograph of a firefly circling a particle accelerator was nominated for the Global Physics Photowalk 2025, praised for blending particle-physics imagery with Japanese nature. January's solar storms were the largest in two decades, producing wide-reaching auroras. A possible ancient stencilled hand painting was found on an Indonesian island.

Read at Nature