NASA captures piece of sun breaking off, baffles scientists

NASA filmed the moment a piece of the sun's northern pole broke off in a never-before-seen phenomenon that has astronomers bewildered.

A video depicts a large filament of plasma, or electrified gas, blasting out from the sun, splitting, and then circling in a 'vast polar vortex.'

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While scientists are perplexed, they believe the prominence is related to the reversal of the sun's magnetic field, which occurs once every solar cycle.

Tamitha Skov, a space weather forecaster, uploaded the video on Twitter, stating that it was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

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“Talk about the polar vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our star,” tweeted Skov.

According to specialists, unusual activity usually occurs near the sun's 55 degree latitudes during the 11-year solar cycle, but this episode has baffled scientists.

A prominence is a noticeable feature that projects outward from the surface of the sun. Previous filament tear-aways have been seen, but not on this scale.

According to Scott McIntosh, deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, researchers aren't sure what caused such a rare event.

“Once every solar cycle, it forms at the 55 degree latitude and it starts to march up to the solar poles,” McIntosh said. “It’s very curious. There is a big ‘why’ question around it. Why does it only move toward the pole one time and then disappears and then comes back, magically, three or four years later in exactly the same region?”

While specialists agree that it most likely has something to do with the sun's magnetic field, the rest remains a mystery due to humanity's limited view of its star. Scientists can only see the sun from the "ecliptic plane," or the geometric plane that contains Earth's orbit.

Researchers are left scratching their heads until the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter project, which is capturing photographs of the sun while lifting its orbit beyond the ecliptic plane, provides answers.

Experts have frequently seen solar forecasts, such as the solar flares that threatened to hit Earth last year. Although there is no way to precisely anticipate how this solar vortex might influence our globe, academics at the time cautioned that such projections could interfere with GPS systems, electricity grids, and even radio communications.

According to Space.com, the sun has already produced several "strong" flares this month that have interfered with communication on Earth, although otherwise seeming innocuous. The sun will peak in activity in 2025, the eleventh year of the current cycle.

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