A blinding flare that flows and ripples with mad speed across the tormented stellar surface, like the sudden striking of a match.
Like earlier pictures, this image contained a bright patch indicating a region in the southwestern quadrant 2,000 K hotter than the stellar surface.
The belt was hydrogen, still mating in fusion fire, pulled loose from the stellar surfaces by two gravitational wells in conflict.
If the star is not surrounded by a thick, diffuse hydrogen envelope, the jets' material can pummel all the way to the stellar surface.
The most obvious being tracking spots on the stellar surface.
Thus, by definition, the optical depth of the stellar surface, also called the photosphere, is:
The Sun was hurling up huge amounts of material high above the stellar surface.
I don't know much about stellar surfaces, but this particular star looked sick to me.
Subatomic details on stellar surfaces could easily be scrutinised!
The two together can be described by a potential, so that, for example, the stellar surfaces lie along equipotential surfaces.