The sun just caught scientists by surprise. Above its surface, they discovered a strange radio signal similar to the aurora borealis

• Something strange is happening above the Sun
• The peculiar phenomenon resembles the terrestrial aurora borealis

At an altitude of approximately 40,000 kilometers above a growing sunspot in the photosphere, a team of astronomers detected a type of long-lasting radio emission never seen before. Experts report on their discovery in a study, the results of which were published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy. The strange phenomenon resembles the terrestrial aurora borealis, but the differences are apparent at first glance.

Don’t miss: The supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is approaching the cosmic speed limit, dragging space-time in its wake

Aurora over the Sun?

“We have observed a special type of long-lasting polarized radio bursts emanating from a sunspot that persist for more than a week,” says Sijie Yu of the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

“This is quite different from the typically transient solar radio flares that usually last for minutes or hours. This is an exciting discovery that has the potential to change our understanding of stellar magnetic processes.”

The aurora borealis is undoubtedly one of the most stunning natural phenomena, but it is not the prerogative of our Earth alone. They have previously been observed on all the major planets of the solar system, and even on the four Galilean moons of Jupiter.

Scientists try to go through the data

However, visible light is only part of the aurora emission spectrum. There is also a radio component. And although the Sun produces a lot of radio radiation through other processes, the emission hovering above the sunspot has a profile similar to the aurora borealis, which scientists say makes sense after all, even though they haven’t seen anything like it before.

“After all, most charged particles are in and around the Sun because it produces them, and dark spots are caused by an intense magnetic field, so the occurrence of aurora-like emissions is not that surprising. “However, aurora-like radio signals have also been detected on another star in the past,” writes Science Alert.

A few years ago, scientists identified a number of stars emitting unusual radio waves, which they linked to the presence of a closely orbiting exoplanet whose atmosphere was sucked into the star and generated auroral emissions.

It’s not clear whether the radio signals from distant stars were caused by the same process as the signals seen on the Sun, and scientists don’t seem too concerned. Now they want to focus in particular on archival data to find out whether similar auroras on the Sun have also occurred in the past.

“We are beginning to piece together the puzzle of how energetic particles and magnetic fields interact in a system with the presence of long-lived starspots, not only in our Sun, but also in stars far beyond our Solar System,” concludes Surajit Mondal in the study.

Preview photo source: NASA, source: Nature Astronomy, Science Alert, Space