Recently, the Sun posed in interesting images. In October, NASA showed a cheerful sunny “smile”, and the European Space Agency (ESA) noticed a “snake” on the surface of our star, which was seen by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. The video shows how a strange formation moves very quickly across the surface of the Sun, resembling the crawling of a giant snake.
The video is a slow-motion shot taken in ultraviolet light by the device on September 5. In fact, the “snake” moved on the surface of the Sun for three hours at a speed of 170 km/s.This formation looks amazing to the average viewer, but it is of particular interest from a scientific point of view.
The burning temperature of the Sun means that all the gas in its atmosphere is plasma – an overheated state of matter. The “snake” was created as a result of the interaction of plasma with the invisible magnetic field of the Sun. Plasma reacts to magnetic field lines and moves along them in the form of a thin thread or “snake”. This is explained in detail by the ESA.
“What makes the snake so intriguing is that it started with an active region of the Sun, which later erupted, throwing billions of tons of plasma into space,” the ESA stated, saying that the snake could have been a precursor to the eruption.
The Solar Orbiter mission is led by ESA in partnership with NASA. The spacecraft was launched in early 2020 to begin a mission to explore the mysterious polar regions of the Sun and obtain unprecedented images of our capricious star.
Earlier we reported on how the Solar Orbiter sent an amazing video of approaching the Sun.
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