VISUAL ARCHIVE / IMAGE STORY
The Slow Escape of Solar Energy
A glowing solar cutaway represents energy transport through layers that no camera can photograph.
An artistic interpretation of the Sun's hidden interior, where dense plasma makes the outward passage of energy extraordinarily slow. AI-generated illustration.
THE OBSERVATION
What we can actually see.
Models constrained by solar oscillations and surface observations describe a fusion-powered core, a radiative zone, and an outer convective zone. The energy reaching the photosphere has passed through many interactions inside dense plasma.
THE ILLUSTRATION
What the artwork imagines.
The uninterrupted luminous trail resembles one photon walking through a tunnel. In reality energy is absorbed, re-emitted, and carried in changing ways; neither the trail nor the depicted interior colors are direct observations.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE
The story that inspired it.
The illustrated story contrasts the Sun's complicated internal transport with the much shorter final flight of sunlight across open space to Earth.
Read The Sun Is a Prison for Its Own LightCHECK THE RECORD
The image interprets the research below. Follow the original work for the measurements and limits behind the scene.
NASA Marshall solar interiorOTHER IMAGE STORIES
Earth Inside the Sun’s Reach
A Probe Crosses the Corona
The Mark Shared by Titan and Pluto