For the second time in a few weeks, we’re writing about research into the temperature gap between the Sun’s surface and its corona. More and more data from various missions continue to feed this wave of discovery. A new paper by Katariina Nykyri of Embry-Riddle, recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, adds to this growing body of work. She argues that millions of tiny whirlpools scattered across the Sun’s surface could be the energetic engine driving that temperature difference.

Earlier this year, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), located atop Haleakalā on Maui, took extremely high resolution images of the Sun’s surface. For the first time, scientists could make out whirlpools of plasma, a few dozen kilometers across, dotted around the Sun’s surface. When this research was published in August, Dr. Nykyri had a bit of a “Eureka!” moment, according to a press release from the University.

Her research had focused on Kelvin-Helmholtz waves.…