Home Science This solar eruption warped the sun’s magnetic field (video)

This solar eruption warped the sun’s magnetic field (video)

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This solar eruption warped the sun’s magnetic field (video)

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The sun unleashed an eruption powerful enough to warp its own magnetic field this week.

Satellites observed the solar eruption, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), on Wednesday (Nov. 15), capturing the bright burst of super-hot plasma as it shot out into space. The Solar Ultraviolet Imager on the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES-16 satellite snapped a photo of the sun with a trail of material spewing from near the north pole region. 

CMEs originate from sunspots, which are dark areas on the surface of the sun where powerful magnetic field lines often tangle, cross and reorganize, causing a sudden explosion of energy. This release of energy can eject gigantic plumes of solar material that can travel through space at millions of miles per hour. The high-speed energy released after the Nov. 15 CME caused temperature variations along the sun’s magnetic field lines, European Space Agency (ESA) officials said on X (formally known as Twitter).

Related: The worst solar storms in history

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES-16 satellite captured this photo of a coronal mass ejection that erupted from the sun’s north polar region (top) on Nov. 15, 2023. (Image credit: NOAA)

“The CME was so large that it warped the #sun’s magnetic field, disrupting the delicate balance of forces all around our star and causing the large outwards rush of mass,” ESA Operations said in an X post that shared a view of the solar eruption captured by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft.



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