A newly released video has revealed a gigantic plume of solar wind towering above the sun in a never-before-seen, "cyclone-like" configuration that emerged in the wake of a massive solar explosion. The striking timelapse footage also captured strange lines streaking across the fiery scene like pixelated UFOs — but are actually distant stars.
The video, which was released March 26 by the European Space Agency (ESA), is sped-up footage originally taken over an eight-hour period on Oct. 12, 2022, by ESA's Solar Orbiter. The spacecraft captured the scene by blocking out the main disk of the sun, which enabled the probe's camera to focus on the extremely faint light given off by the flow of superfast charged particles, or solar wind, that streams out of our home star nearly constantly.
This is the first time solar wind has been recorded "flying out from the sun in a twisting, whirling motion," ESA representatives wrote in a statement. "The solar wind particles spiral outwards as if caught in a cyclone that extends millions of kilometres from the sun."
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