The Sun doesn’t just fuel almost all life on Earth. It’s also our astrophysical laboratory, the only star close enough to observe in sufficient detail. This enormous ball of hydrogen and helium is made of plasma—extremely hot, electrically charged gas. It creates a temperature of about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit at the core and I sometimes marvel at how, when you’re standing in the sunlight, you’re actually feeling the heat from that far away. And that churning of plasma within the Sun produces the magnetic field that envelops our entire Solar System.

Over the years, scientists have made many close-ups of the Sun’s surface with various telescopes and observatories. Now, we have the highest-resolution images yet, thanks to the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on Maui, Hawai'i.

In a study published Wednesday in Nature, a team led by researchers from the US National Solar Observatory and Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research delivers new observations of the surface of the Sun with unprecedented precision—the resolution is roughly equivalent to spotting a blueberry from 70 miles away. So what did they find?

The “surface” of the sun is really an unstable, roiling soup of plasma. The video released by researchers shows vortices of hot plasma that ebb and flow like bubbles in a pot of boiling water. Hot plasma is transported up from below the sun’s surface to a cooler area; as it cools, it drops back down to the inner parts of the star. The imagery and time-lapse video reveal an unprecedented look at the sun’s complex and “dynamic photosphere”.

And the paper presents the first empirical evidence that these detailed disturbances and vortices on the surface are created by a process called Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. The discovery could help scientists unlock one of the biggest mysteries in the study of the sun and other stars: why its outer atmosphere, known as the corona, is so much hotter than its visible surface. This is the opposite of what happens in, say, a candle; as you move your hand away from the flame, you expect it to feel cooler, not warmer. Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is known as a way to break down energy flows into smaller and smaller patterns, potentially releasing small bursts of energy outward.

America’s Voice, a pro-immigration advocacy group, released a report, shared with CNBC, making the case that President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is hurting the U.S. economy. The researchers found that the mass deportation campaign has led to higher food, housing and healthcare prices, while causing local economies to contract.

What’s more, American taxpayers would pay about $2,358 each for President Trump's mass deportation push, according to a new calculator tool from the Economic Policy Institute. The estimate fuels debate over whether billions of federal dollars devoted to deportations could instead fund other public priorities such as food assistance, health care or housing. As Newsweek points out, it “could be spent on funding over 925,000 schoolteachers or pay for over 5 million veterans' medical care.”

The $268.9 billion the administration is slated to spend over the course of Trump's second term on deportations is from a combination of money from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, budget reconciliation bills, regular appropriations and other repurposed funds. Meanwhile, other think tanks have found that millions of families with immigrant family members will also face the real, human toll of these policies, leaving many immigrant parents unable to support their families, and pushing tens of thousands U.S. citizen children into poverty.

How do you feel about long-haul flights? I’ve gone back and forth between Japan and the U.S. so many times now that I feel like I actually prefer a good 10+ hour flight over a quick hop—better seats, better food, nicer flight attendants. But even I can admit that a 24-hour flight is a serious journey up in the air.

But loads of people were following online as an Airbus jet operated by Qantas touched down in Toulouse, France, this week. It had just completed a record-breaking flight: flying 12,460 nautical miles (in 24 hours and 24 minutes) nonstop from Melbourne, Australia. There were no passengers, though. It was a test for the airline’s long awaited Project Sunrise, which aims to offer the first nonstop flights between Sydney and London starting next year.

The Airbus A350-1000ULR was developed specifically for this. The route will become the world’s longest commercial passenger service and usher in a new era of ultralong-haul travel. Of course, such a feat is also raising a lot of questions. But the cabin boasts features to make it as easy on people as possible, from lighting designed to reduce jet lag to dedicated spaces for passengers to work or relax and socialize during the long flights.