Sun

This is a close-up of a sunspot. It is really an incredible structure to behold; especially considering it is a structure in a gas, not a solid, or more properly a plasma, in which energetic photons have stripped the electrons off of atoms in the gas.

On the outside you see what are usually thought to be convection cells, although I have my doubts because of their apparent attachment to the filamentary structures which are comprised of charge plasma particles carried along magnetic field lines, or so goes the conventional theory.

The lines appear to twist and turn and bend in ways that appear different than the way iron filings follow a magnetic field line, but then in a plasma there is an important difference, the charged particles themselves, moving, create their own magnetic fields interacting with the existing magnetic field and creating incredibly complex magnetic structures. When I look at these, really stare at them, I can't help but feel the presence of something alive and sentient.

When there is a sunspot group in one hemisphere, there is usually a corresponding feature in the other hemisphere and field lines looping between them. When one of these loops breaks and magnetic field lines reconfigure, then you get a part of the gas ejected into space at tremendous velocity, and if it intercepts the Earth you get intensified Auroras and other space weather phenomena.