A video shows the appearance of a ‘snake’ on the surface Sun. It is true that there is a snake in the centre Solar system the?
To collect Scientific alarm, the appearance of a “snake” on the Sun was first detected by the European Space Agency (ESA) using the Solar Orbiter probe. Even though it moves like a snake, this phenomenon is actually related to the eruption of the sun that knows no rest.
The orbiter discovered the phenomenon on 5 September as it approached the observation of the Sun on 12 October. As it moved, the Orbiter caught something in the shape of a snake moving across the surface of the Sun.
According to experts, the phenomenon is a cooler plasma tube surrounded by hot plasma from the solar atmosphere. Both are linked by the magnetic field of the Sun.
“You see the plasma moving from side to side. But the magnetic field is really twisted. So you make it change direction because we’re looking at a twisted structure,” said astronomer David Long of University College London.
The magnetic field of the Sun is complex. To understand this phenomenon, more effort is needed.
But the sun’s atmosphere is composed of plasma, made of charged particles that are easily held together by the sun’s magnetic field. That’s why fusion generators like tokamaks rely heavily on magnetic fields to bind the plasma.
This “snake” phenomenon on the Sun allows scientists to see the Sun’s magnetic field in motion. But it is the reasons behind the movement that most interest scientists.
Shortly after the “snake” moved, the starting point of its movement caused an eruption in the coronal mass ejection that propelled plasma into space. These eruptions are usually associated with sunspots, places where the sun’s magnetic field lines are concentrated.
Experts also suspect that the movement of the “snake” is some kind of pre-event of the eruption. For the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD), the eruption is one of the most intense particles of solar energy ever detected.
“A good combination of data that we can get from Solar Orbiter,” said David.
The Solar Orbiter isn’t the only probe to observe the sun. There’s NASA’s Parker Solar Probe looking at a series of flames from the coronal mass ejection.
The Solar Orbiter itself was actually created thanks to the collaboration of ESA and NASA. It launched on February 10, 2020, and earlier this month celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of Days in Space.
(leth)
