In the first week of February 2023, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) captured the very moment when a piece of the Sun’s northern pole broke off, or a large filament of plasma (electrified gas) was seen blasting out from the Sun, splitting, and then circling in a Vast Polar Vortex. As expected, the never-seen-before phenomenon has astonished all the scientific minds connected to space. They have started analysing why this happened.

Soon after the James Webb Telescope of the US Civil Space Research agency filmed the incident, the perplexed scientists opined that the prominence was related to the reversal of the Sun’s magnetic field, which occurs once every solar cycle. Dr Tamitha Skov, a Space Weather Forecaster by profession, uploaded a video on Twitter in the second week of February, saying that it was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Dr Skov explained that the radiation from the Sun often affects the communication system of the Earth. Naturally, this cosmic event will have an impact on the Earth. She tweeted: “Talk about the polar vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament and is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our star. Implications for understanding the Sun’s atmospheric dynamics above 55 degrees here cannot be overstated!” According to Dr Skov, that place (or space of the Sun) is not fixed, but rotating.

According to astronomers, there is depression over a large area at both Poles of the Earth. In fact, a polar vortex is commonly defined as a large area of low pressure and cold air surrounding both of the Earth’s Poles, while vortex refers to the counter-clockwise flow of air that helps keep the colder air near the Poles. A prominence is a large, bright feature that extends outward from the Sun’s surface. In other words, when cold air rotates anti-clockwise, it is called the Polar Vortex. Generally, it weakens during summer, and gains strength in winter.

Scott McIntosh, the Deputy Director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and a Solar Physicist, has been observing the Sun for decades. He told space.com that he had never seen such a scene. He stressed: “Once every solar cycle, it forms at the 55 degree latitude and it starts to march up to the solar poles.” McIntosh added: “It is 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?”

According to NASA, a very bright tornado is rotating around the outer surface of the Sun. Astronomers believe that further observations are required to understand this tornado more clearly. However, Dr Skov has called this cosmic phenomenon Solar Polar Vortex. She wrote on Twitter: “More observations of the Solar Polar Vortex reveal it took roughly eight hours for material to circumnavigate the pole at approximately 60 degree latitude. This means an upper bound in the estimation of horizontal wind speed in this event is 96km per second or 60 miles a second.“

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das