The Sunrise III mission offers a completely new view of the Sun, and its first results have now been published. For six and a half days in July 2024, the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III kept its gaze fixed on the Sun. The stratospheric flight, which stretched from the northernmost tip of Sweden to Canada’s Northwest Territories, yielded a treasure trove of data exceeding 200 terabytes. These observations are unique: they provide unprecedented detail into a layer of the Sun approximately 2,000 kilometers thick and can continuously track its immense dynamics over several hours. This region encompasses the Sun’s visible surface, the photosphere, as well as the adjacent chromosphere above it. The complex interplay of hot plasma, fluctuating magnetic fields, and waves in this region is responsible, among other things, for our star’s violent outbursts that hurl particles and radiation into space.

During the flight, the Sun itself offered a comprehensive showcase of its capabilities: in addition to calm regions representing its moderate “normal” state, numerous signs of its temperament were also visible, such as sunspots, small and large solar flares, and regions of particularly high magnetic field strength.

“Sunrise III has already permanently changed our view of the Sun. The data show how minute structures and rapid processes in the photosphere and chromosphere determine the impetuous nature of our star,” explains a member of the mission team. A review article summarizing the mission’s first scientific results was published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters and marks the start of a comprehensive focus issue dedicated exclusively to the results of the Sunrise III mission. “The results already available are as diverse as the Sun itself,” a co-author of the review article and Science Working Group head explains. “They reveal new insights into the Sun’s quiescent state and help us understand its volatile side.”

Oscillations, Flares, and Tornados

Turbulent plasma flows inside the Sun generate waves that propagate throughout the entire star, all the way to its lower atmosphere. Acoustic waves with periods of about five minutes have so far been observed mainly in a layer about 100 to 200 kilometers above the Sun’s visible surface. Sunrise III provides a significantly more detailed view: for the first time, researchers were able to track the propagation of these waves within the photosphere and chromosphere, a layer with a total thickness of 2,000 kilometers, and study the influence of the magnetic field present there.

During the flight, a solar flare of the second-strongest category occurred on the Sun, a class of eruption that can cause moderate disruptions on Earth, for example in power grids or satellite systems. Sunrise III was able to track the flare in minute detail. In the chromosphere, elongated, brightly flashing structures appear during a solar flare, forming when magnetic field lines rearrange themselves and release energy. The Sunrise III data provides precise insights into the fine structure and changes in the magnetic field at these locations, which can help researchers understand how small-scale processes in the chromosphere regulate the evolution of large solar flares.

The magnetic field lines extending from quiet regions of the Sun’s surface into the chromosphere were previously considered to have a comparatively “orderly” structure. Sunrise III data, combined with computer simulations, now paint a different picture: finely twisted magnetic field lines are embedded within ordered magnetic strands. They control the flows of hot plasma in the chromosphere and are thus likely to be the sites of small “solar tornados.”

So far, only a small portion of the Sunrise III data has been analyzed. “We’re still just at the very beginning,” notes the project manager. “The data from the Sunrise III mission will keep us busy for many years to come, and will certainly hold a surprise or two.”

The balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III is a mission of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS, Germany) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL, USA), with significant contributions from a Spanish consortium, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), and the Leibniz Institute for Solar Physics (KIS, Germany).

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Journal: The Astrophysical Journal Letters
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ae796b
Article Title: Sunrise III: Instrument, mission, data, and first results
Publication Date: 9-Jul-2026
Funding: Max Planck Foundation; NASA (Grants #80NSSC18K0934, #80NSSC24M0024); ISAS/JAXA Small Mission-of-Opportunity program; JSPS KAKENHI JP18H05234; Spanish MCIN/AEI