The sun's just way too hot to be able to take pictures really up close...right? Not. Thanks to the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) aboard the Hinode spacecraft of Japan, we now have a "first light" image taken on October 23rd. The images you see below are actual solar granules, or those hot gas masses, whose movements are like that of boiling water sitting atop a hot stove. Those granules, every one of them, is reported to be as big as a terrestrial continent.

According to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), they now have confirmation that the "SOT is achieving a very high angular resolution of 0.2 archseconds, a primary objective of the instrument. How much is an archsecond? One is equal to 1/3600 of a degree. Putting it in a more visual perspective, it's approximately the "width of a human hair held thirty feet away".

The Hinode spacecraft set off to space on September 22nd from the Uchinoura Space Center, Kyushu, Japan. Carrying the Japanese term for sunrise, the Hinode's mission is to study the sun, particularly sunspots, the ones responsible for powerful flares and solar storms. Stashed on the Hinode are three advanced space telescopes: the SOT, the X-ray telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS).

The banner image above is the first solar image taken from Hinode's X-ray telescope on October 28th.