March 21, 2007New images released by NASA on Wednesday reveal that the sun's magnetic field is much more turbulent than previously believed.

Among the new views is this never before seen look at the structure of the field rising from a sunspot, which was snapped by the international spacecraft Hinode on November 20, 2006.

"For the first time, we are now able to make out tiny granules of hot gas that rise and fall in the sun's magnetized atmosphere," Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division, said in a press release.

"These images will open a new era of study on some of the sun's processes that affect Earth, astronauts, orbiting satellites, and the solar system."

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