Scientists have just spotted a strange circular filament wobbling around the sun's pole that has them really excited.
The prominence mentioned by Skov, something that McIntosh describes as a"hedgerow in the solar plasma", appears exactly at the 55 degree latitude around the sun's polar crowns every 11 years. Scientists know that it has something to do with the reversal of the sun's magnetic field that happens once every solar cycle, but they have no clue what drives it.
"Once every solar cycle, it forms at the 55 degree latitude and it starts to march up to the solar poles," McIntosh told Space.com."It's 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?"
Scientists have regularly observed filaments tear away from this pole-embracing plasma hedgerow, but they have yet to see it form such a polar whirlwind until now. Scientists know that the sun's polar regions play a key role in the generation of the star's magnetic field, which, in turn, drives its 11-year cycle of activity. They couldn't, however, observe that region directly.
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