(ORDO NEWS) — There’s a lot we don’t know about the Sun and its behavior, other than that, we’ve never seen its poles.
Detailed studies of these regions will be carried out in the coming years, but until then we can simply marvel at some of the events that take place around them.
Astrophysicist Tamita Skov shared on Twitter a unique spectacle recorded by NASA‘s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
A huge solar prominence rises up from the surface of the Sun – a dense cloud of plasma. And then it all twists around the north pole, forming a vortex.
“The importance for understanding the dynamics of the solar atmosphere above 55° here cannot be overestimated,” wrote Dr. Skov on Twitter.
A vortex like this has never been observed before, although scientists see the phenomenon regularly.
This is the main element of the 11-year solar cycle, although the exact mechanisms for the formation and evolution of the vortex are currently unclear.
“Once every solar cycle, it forms at a latitude of 55 degrees and begins to approach the sun’s poles,” said astrophysicist Scott McIntosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
“It’s very interesting. Around this, the big question “why” arises.
Why does it only move to the pole once and then disappear and then magically return three or four years later in the same region?”
The task of finding out what the poles of the Sun look like and what happens at higher latitudes is entrusted to the ESA mission called Solar Orbiter.
The spacecraft has been traveling through the inner solar system for 3 years now, and it is gradually tilting its orbit. By 2025, its orbit will have an inclination of 17 degrees, and it is expected to increase to 33 degrees.
This will allow scientists to look at the Sun’s poles for the first time.
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