Polar vortex on Sun , large chunk broken off

Scientists are perplexed after a gigantic tentacle of plasma that split away in the sun's atmosphere on February 2 , circled the star's north pole at hundreds of miles per minute, and then vanished.?

What does all of this mean? In essence, a prominence is a massive looping structure that was created by a lengthy filament of plasma, the electrically charged gas that all stars are comprised of. As solar plasma spirals along tangled magnetic field lines, it frequently forms these structures that can loop into space for hundreds of thousands of kilometres.?

The sun appears to be a constant ball of heat from Earth, but its activity actually varies greatly throughout an 11-year period known as the "solar cycle." The cycle starts at the solar minimum, when phenomena like sunspots and flares are infrequent, and builds up to the solar maximum. Then things really start to get interesting.?

As the name suggests, the solar maximum occurs when the sun is most active and when its polarity reverses. The sun's solar low was in December 2019, and it has been gradually increasing to its maximum since then (likely due sometime in 2024). The sun is currently on its way to reaching its most ferocious state, as evidenced by a peculiar, never-before-seen "polar whirlwind."?