Written in SCIENCE he
what is happening to our sun? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (POT) shared a video that captures the moment in which a part of the solar body “is breaks“, that is, it detaches from the star, in an event that has never been seen before by the scientific community and that certainly has them baffled because they cannot explain what is happening.
In the video presented by the POT, a large filament of electrified gas or plasma from the Sun can be seen shooting out of the solar body, separating and then circling in a massive polar vortex. Although at the moment scientists do not know what caused this disconcerting phenomenon that caused it to “break” he sunThey believe that it would have to do with the reversal of our star’s magnetic field that occurs once every solar cycle.
He video was shared on Twitter by space meteorologist Tamitha Skov, who explained that the multimedia material was taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory of the POT. She accompanied the clip with the following text: “Speaking of a polar vortex! Material from a northern prominence has just broken away from the main filament and is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our star,” the expert detailed in her social network.
The POT describes solar filaments as clouds of charged particles that float above the sun. sun, attached to it by magnetic forces. These appear in the form of elongated, ragged strands that shoot out of the sun’s surface. The prominence mentioned by Skov appears precisely at 55 degrees latitude around the sun’s polar coronas every 11 years.
In this regard, solar physicist Scott McIntosh, deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, explained in an interview for Space.com that “once every solar cycle, it forms at latitude 55 degrees and begins to march towards the solar poles”, but the scientific community wonders why it only moves towards the pole once and then disappears, only to magically return three or four years later in the same region?
While astronomers have previously observed filaments separating from the sun, this is the first time that one circulates through the region in the form of a whirlwind. Scientists have yet to determine what caused the filament in the recent observation to swirl around the sun instead of shooting off into space.
Should we be concerned about increased activity in the SOL? How does it affect the Earth?
The recent increase in the activity of the Sun This is because it is nearing the most active phase of its 11-year solar cycle, peaking in 2024.
For this reason, astronomers observe intense solar radiation, more ejection of solar materials, more sunspots and more violent solar flares, which can affect our planet. planet Earth in the coming months and until 2024 when the phenomenon reaches its peak.
In August 2022, the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft Gaia made a chilling prediction that our sun It is almost halfway through its useful life. When it reaches the end, it will swell up and destroy our planet, but the ship’s data suggests this won’t happen for at least five billion years.
Here you can appreciate in greater detail the moment when a part of the sun “breaks”:
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