Zooming into PHI's detailed visible light image reveals the Sun's ‘surface’ for what it is: glowing, hot plasma (charged gas) that is constantly moving. Almost all radiation from the Sun is emitted from this layer, which has a temperature between 4500 and 6000 °C. Beneath it, the hot, dense plasma is churned around in the ‘convection zone’ of the Sun, not unlike magma in Earth's mantle. As a result of this movement, the Sun's surface takes on a grainy appearance.

However, the most striking features in the images are the sunspots. In the visible light image, these look like dark spots, or holes, in the otherwise smooth surface. Sunspots are colder than their surroundings, and therefore give off less light.

PHI's magnetic map, or ‘magnetogram’, shows that the Sun's magnetic field is concentrated in the sunspot regions. It either points outward (red) or inward (blue) wherever the sunspots lie. The strong magnetic field explains why plasma inside sunspots is colder. Normally, convection moves heat from inside the Sun to its surface, but this is disrupted by charged particles being forced to follow the dense magnetic field lines in and around the sunspots.

The speed and direction of movement of material at the Sun's surface can be seen in PHI's velocity map, also known as a ‘tachogram’. Blue shows movement towards the spacecraft, while red indicates movement away from the spacecraft. This map shows that while the plasma on the surface of the Sun generally rotates with the Sun’s overall spin around its axis, it is pushed outward around the sunspots.

Finally, EUI's image of the Sun's corona shows what happens above the photosphere. Above the active sunspot regions, glowing plasma is seen protruding out. The million-degree plasma follows magnetic field lines sticking out from the Sun, often connecting neighbouring sunspots.