A couple of days ago astronomers from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO, for its acronym in English) from NASA managed to capture a video sequence where you can clearly see a strange surface eddy of powerful winds that formed at the north pole of the Sun.
But what has attracted the most attention from this phenomenon is that a large plasma filament emerges from the vortex that has never been seen before, so Scientists do not know what caused this “detachment” from the Sun.
“Speaking of polar vortex! Material from a northern prominence broke away from the main filament and is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around our star’s north pole,” space meteorologist Tamitha Skov wrote on Twitter last week.
“The implications for understanding the atmospheric dynamics of the Sun above 55° (solar latitude) here cannot be overstated!” he added.
How does this “detachment” or solar polar vortex affect us?
Scott McIntosh, who is deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, explained in an interview with Space.com that while he had never seen a vortex like this, something strange happens regularly.
Every 11 years of the solar cycle characterized by the generation of sunspots and eruptions, this phenomenon appears. It appears to be related to the reversal of the magnetic field, which occurs once every solar cycle, but what drives it is unknown.
“Once every solar cycle, it forms at 55° and starts marching toward the solar poles,” McIntosh said.
“It is very curious. There is a big ‘why’ question around you. Why does it only move towards the pole once and then disappear and then magically return three or four years later in the exact same region?” he added.
Scientists have regularly observed filaments break off from this fence of plasma surrounding the poles, but to date they had not seen it form such a polar vortex. They also know that the Sun’s polar regions play an important role in generating the star’s magnetic field, which, in turn, drives its 11-year activity cycle. “However, we can only observe the Sun from the ecliptic plane (the plane in which the planets orbit),” McIntosh said.
Solar projections have been observed by experts quite often, such as last year’s solar flares that threatened to impact Earth. Such projections could disrupt GPS systems, power grids and even radio signals, although there is no way to accurately predict how this solar vortex would affect our planet.
It may interest you:
* The impacts that solar flares have on our planet
* They detect strange waves in the Sun that travel faster than previously thought “possible”, defying the laws of physics
* VIDEO: This is how the Sun has changed in the last 10 years