Solar snake

The ESA-NASA Solar Orbiter mission captured this timelapse video of a "solar snake" crossing the surface of the Sun. The snake is a tube of plasma cooler than its surroundings, suspended by magnetic fields. It took about three hours for the snake to make the journey seen in the video, traveling at about 170 kilometers per second (106 miles per second). A plasma eruption then came from the region where the snake originated, raising the possibility that the two events were linked. The images of the solar snake were captured on Sept. 5, 2022, and this video was published by ESA on Nov. 4, 2022.