In ultraviolet light, the Sun looks like a bubbling sea
Astrophysicists and astronomy enthusiasts told Latvian Radio that in ultraviolet light the Sun does not appear as a smooth disk but as a constantly bubbling and rippling surface. The sunspots visible in ordinary optical light are only a small part of the Sun's true, highly dynamic nature.
To the naked eye and in standard telescope images, the Sun usually looks like a fairly uniform, round ball of light with occasional darker spots. But when observed in ultraviolet radiation, a completely different picture emerges — the Sun's surface is constantly moving, bubbling, and rippling much like the surface of the sea.
This was explained on a Latvian Radio programme by Andris Vaivads, rector of Ventspils University of Applied Sciences and an astrophysicist, along with IT specialists and astronomy enthusiasts Raitis Misa and Ints Kešāns. They pointed out that the Sun is far from being a uniform, static object, as it might appear from a distance or in ordinary photographs.
A different view in a different part of the spectrum
The experts noted that the structure and dynamics of the Sun's surface become visible specifically when it is observed in the ultraviolet part of the light spectrum, rather than in the ordinary optical range visible to the human eye. In this spectrum, the Sun appears more colourful and far more active — constant processes on its surface create the impression of bubbling and rippling.
The programme's guests stressed that this phenomenon helps in understanding the physical nature of the Sun as a star — it is not a motionless object but a constantly changing, energetically active system. The experts went into more detail on air about the specific processes driving this surface movement, also explaining the differences between how the Sun appears at different wavelengths of light.
Such popular-science explanations on Latvian Radio programmes help a wider audience learn about developments in astronomy and astrophysics, using simple comparisons — such as likening the rippling of the Sun's surface to sea waves — to make complex physical phenomena easier for non-specialists to understand.
