A massive storm has sprung up on the sun’s North Pole, and scientists have no idea what might have caused it.
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Space meteorologist Dr Tamitha Skov shared a video on Twitter showing strong winds on the surface of the sun.
“Materials have detached from the North Pole and are circulating in a huge polar storm around the North Pole of our star, she says in her publication. The implications for understanding the atmospheric dynamics of the sun above the 55th parallel are very important.”
In an interview with the Space.com website, solar physicist Scott McIntosh said he had never seen anything like it.
He explains that storms occur regularly every solar cycle at 55 degrees latitude of the star, but not of this magnitude.
Although scientists believe they are related to the reversal of the sun’s magnetic field, they still don’t know why they occur.
“It’s very curious,” he said. Why do these storms only occur at the pole once and then disappear and return, magically, three or four years later in the same region?”
An upcoming mission from the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbital Probe may provide some answers to this question, as it will photograph the sun from Mercury’s orbit.
