See A Solar Snake Slither Across The Sun In Bizarre Video

A European Space Agency of a solar snake making its way across the Sun's surface has been edited to show the phenomenon's progress.

By Matthew Creith | Updated

In the night sky, astronomers have attempted for years to present their findings of the universe to a legion of devoted generations always wanting to discover more about the stars and galaxies around us. Recently, many people were treated to the sight of an asteroid shaped like a skull that flew past the Earth on Halloween, as well as a rare vampire sun that’s a feast for the eyes. Now, Live Science reports that a solar snake has slithered its way across the sun, and the sight was captured on film and uploaded to YouTube.

Set to the music composition of “Snake Dance” by Mike Franklyn, the YouTube video of the solar snake phenomenon on the sun appears to have generated quite a bit of buzz. The video has been viewed 32,000 times in the four days since it was posted to the Video From Space YouTube channel, where it depicts plasma moving across the sun in a snake like slithering motion. The time-lapse video was initially taken by the European Space Agency which reflects the phenomenon resulting from cool plasma flowing through the magnetic field of the sun.

The images of the solar snake were brought to the world’s attention directly from the Solar Orbiter two months ago, as the renowned satellite was put into place so that it can take observations of the sun from about 26 million miles away. This recent video seeks to showcase the solar snake moving across the sun in what appears to be a few seconds, but in reality, the sequence of events took about three hours in total. The European Space Agency estimates that the solar snake most likely moved at a pace equal to about 378,000 miles per hour.

solar snake

It is understood by the European Space Agency that the plasma from the solar snake might have also traveled passed the Parker Solar Probe, a NASA invention that became the first device to enter the sun’s atmosphere. The Parker Solar Probe was initially launched to discover more details about solar physics, which it is doing in collaboration with the Solar Orbiter. Scientists believe that this collaboration could in fact help their colleagues in predicting the causations of space weather resulting from periodic eruptions from the sun and how that currently influences the Earth.

A lot of these observations of space from the European Space Agency and solar snakes seem to be straight out of the plot of a movie, with recent science fiction depictions coming to mind like Moonshot and Ad Adstra that might end up becoming reality in the not so distant future. Hollywood has long been known to take phenomenons from the sky and put them in central focus of blockbuster box office draws, including the Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck feature Armageddon. In that 1998 movie, scientists worked with NASA and deep-core drillers to help stop a huge asteroid from colliding with the planet in order to save everyone on Earth.

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