In a new video, a near-solar orbiting observatory caught a snake gliding across the Sun’s surface. However, the “snake” detected by the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter is not a true stellar scale, but a recently observed solar phenomenon that can be associated with powerful outbursts from the restless Sun. The orbiter observed the moving structure on September 5 as it approached its closest approach, known as the perihelion, scheduled for October 12, when the Solar Orbiter was at its closest. (By the way, the video of that meeting was incredible.)

As the Solar Orbiter approached, he imagined a wavy line traveling a long way across the Sun. Solar scientists say it’s a tube of cooler plasma that surrounds the hot plasma of the Sun’s atmosphere, connected by the Sun’s magnetic fields. The video shows plasma curving across the Sun from side to side, following the fibers of the Sun’s magnetic field.

“You see the plasma flowing from one side to the other, but the magnetic field is really warped. That direction has changed because we’re looking at the twisted structure from above,” explains University College astronomer David Long. London in Great Britain.

The Sun’s magnetic fields are complex, and trying to understand them and their behavior is an ongoing Herculean task. But the Sun’s atmosphere is made up of plasma, which is made up of charged particles that are easily held together by magnetic fields. So fusion generators like tokamaks rely on magnetic fields to hold the plasma together, but it also means you can get a pretty good idea of ​​what magnetic fields do if you can follow the structures in the plasma.

The sun snake allows scientists to see the movement of the magnetic field, but what makes it even more intriguing is where it’s receding from. Shortly after the filament passed through the Sun, its origin exploded in a coronal mass ejection, sending a burst of plasma into space. These eruptions are often associated with sunspots, or regions of concentrated magnetic field lines on the Sun. These magnetic field lines become entangled, shortened, and reconnected, causing coronal mass ejections and sometimes solar flares.

It’s possible that the snake is somehow related to one of the most powerful eruptions detected by Solar Orbiter since its launch in February 2020, perhaps as a precursor to the eruption.

Solar Orbiter is not alone either; NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is directly in the firing line of a coronal mass launch. Pristine – designed to withstand and measure the sun’s tantrums, we’re all looking forward to seeing what it finds in the plasma ejected by such a monumental blast. Meanwhile, Solar Orbiter’s next perihelion point will occur next April. Sunspot activity on the sun continues to increase, reaching the peak of its 11-year activity cycle, so we’re excited to see what the little probe will show us next. Source