Mysterious object captured leaving the Sun during a
solar eclipse.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured striking images of a solar event that occurred on April 8, 2024. The images show the formation of an immense " plasma tornado " in the northern hemisphere of the Sun. This large mass of superheated gases rose from the solar surface and triggered a powerful Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).
Solar storms like this can cause serious problems
for satellite communications, GPS systems and power supplies on Earth. The
released energetic particles and waves can seriously affect transformers and
other vital infrastructure, causing large-scale blackouts.
Shocking revelations at multiple wavelengths
The SDO captures solar images in a wide range of
wavelengths, each highlighting different temperatures and structures of the
solar atmosphere. The 335 Angstrom "blue" image, for example, shows
solar material at a temperature of more than 2.5 million degrees Celsius.
But the most puzzling thing about this event was not
the plasma tornado itself, but a mysterious object that emerged from the
surface of the Sun right after. The images clearly captured an unidentified
object shooting into outer space at high speed.
Disturbing precedents
These types of phenomena are not new. In 2012, a huge black sphere "connected" to the Sun by dark filaments went around the world on social networks, generating conspiracy theories about UFOs extracting solar energy. Later, it was clarified that it was a hollow transient in the solar plasma.
Even in 2020, the SOHO probe photographed a gigantic
cube, 10 times larger than Earth, in the northern hemisphere of the Sun. And
solar tornadoes are not an unprecedented event either, with one recorded in
2015 that lasted 40 hours at temperatures of 2.7 million degrees.
Worrying link between solar activity and seismicity
Perhaps the most alarming thing about this event is the growing scientific evidence on the relationship between solar activity and seismic and volcanic activity on Earth.
A study published in Nature revealed that the
strongest earthquakes occur when solar proton activity peaks. In fact, just
after the X5 solar flare on December 31, 2023, a devastating 7.4 earthquake was
recorded in Japan.
Researcher Giuseppe De Natale, from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome, explained that when solar activity is more intense, there is a dramatic increase in the frequency of earthquakes greater than magnitude 5.6 in the following 24 hours.
NASA's Living With a Star Program
The Solar Dynamics Observatory is the first mission of NASA's Living With a Star program, which aims to understand solar variability and its impacts on our planet. Maintaining constant surveillance of our star seems increasingly crucial in the face of these puzzling phenomena.
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