Last week, part of the Sun's surface broke off and started circling the Sun's north pole as if it were a giant polar vortex, and scientists don't know why.
Space meteorologist Tamitha Skov posted a video of the phenomenon to Twitter, she shared details of the sighting of the strange phenomenon of the Sun in question.
"Talk about a Polar Vortex! Matter from the north has just separated from the main filament and is now circulating in a large polar vortex around the north pole of our Star. The implications for understanding the dynamics of the Sun's atmosphere above 55° here cannot be overstated," said he.
This is one of the latest discoveries from a series of exciting space observations thanks to the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope. According to NASA, a solar prominence is a large bright feature that extends out from the surface of the Sun. The bulge is composed of hydrogen and helium, and usually erupts when the structure becomes unstable and explodes, releasing plasma.
Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and deputy director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said he had never seen a vortex like this. But he notes that something strange usually happens at the latitude of 55 degrees of the Sun every time the Sun undergoes a cycle.
The Solar Cycle is an 11-year periodic change in the activity of the Sun. During this period, things like the Sun's radiation, the Sun's material ejection, the Sun's spots, and the Sun's lick of fire fluctuate.
McIntosh describes the prominence of the Sun's northern region as a 'crop fence' in the Sun's plasma that appears in exactly the same place around the Sun's polar crown every 11 years.
But although scientists have observed the existence of such a 'plant fence' in the solar plasma, the area has never produced a polar vortex like the one recently observed.
Scientists think the phenomenon is related to the reversal of the Sun's magnetic field, and believe that the polar region is very important in producing the magnetic field, but they do not know what exactly causes it.
"Once every cycle of the Sun, it forms at a latitude of 55 degrees and begins to move towards the sun's pole," said McIntosh quoted from Space.com.
"This is very strange. There's a big 'why' question around it. Why does it only move towards the poles once and then disappear and come back, miraculously, three or four years later in exactly the same region?" he continued.
McIntosh also says that it is a region that cannot be directly observed, because scientists can only observe the Sun from the ecliptic plane, or the planet's orbit.
Currently the ongoing Solar Orbiter mission from the European Space Agency can provide some new insights and knowledge, as it takes pictures of the Sun from within the orbit of Mercury. However, McIntosh believes we need another mission to fully understand what is happening in the Sun.