Incredible video shows ‘Solar snake’ soars across the sun

A “snakelike” figure has been spotted slithering around the sun’s surface, and the ESA has released incredible footage of the event.

The European Space Agency has released shocking footage of a peculiar solar event on the sun.

The video shows a wriggly, snake like figure moving across the surface of the sun.

It’s motion has earned it the name “solar snake”, as it moves like a reptile under the sun’s outer surface.

The ESA said it was seen on September 5, and it is a “tube of cool plasma suspended by magnetic fields in the hotter surrounding plasma of the Sun’s atmosphere.”

The "snake" is made of plasma and is seen wriggling on the Sun’s surface. Picture: ESA

The plasma, which is created when gas reaches a temperature so hot its atoms begin losing particles, is electrically charged and susceptible to magnetic fields.

All of the gas in the Sun’s atmosphere is plasma, as the temperature reaches more than a million degrees centigrade.

The ESA’s video of the event was constructed from a time-lapse of images of the sun from the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on-board Solar Orbiter as it approached the sun for a “close pass” on October 12.

The “snake” like vision travels along a long filament in the Sun’s magnetic field, which reaches across from one side of it to the other.

An artist’s impression of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, which is a collaboration between NASA and the ESA. Credit: ESA / ATG

Dr David Long from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the UK said the plasma flows from one side to the other, but the magnetic field is twisted.

“You’re getting this change in direction because we’re looking down on a twisted structure.”

The plasma “must have” been travelling at speeds up to 170km per second, but in reality took around three hours to go the distance across the Sun’s surface.

The Solar Orbiter is collaborative mission between ESA and NASA, which launched in February 2020.

The spacecraft was launched in February 2020 and recently celebrated its 1000th day in space. Picture: NASA