Astrophotographer captures ‘dance of plasma’ in close-up shot of gigantic sunspot

Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy, who was observing sunspot AR3697 which appeared over the southeastern limb of the sun, captured its incredible footage from his backyard in Arizona.

In the footage, the astrophotographer captured the sunspot region's turbulent nature in great detail.

"Unlike most celestial objects, the sun looks quite different from day to day, and is filled with exciting events like flares or coronal mass ejections. There's always something interesting to look at!," said McCarthy, while speaking to Space.com.

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Thesunspotregion, which was formerly called AR3664, attracted the attention of the media and skywatchers in recent weeks after it released a flurry ofcoronal mass ejectionsCMEs, which were expulsions of plasma and magnetic field, towards the Earth.

When the magnetosphere of our planet was struck by these CMEs, it triggered a Category 5 geomagnetic storm which led toaurorasfar beyond their normal ranges.

Since the sunspot region turned to faceEarth, its return with daily timelapse was documented by McCarthy.

"This sunspot has a history of being highly active, and produced a number of flares and CMEs which are exciting to capture and track," said McCarthy.

How did the astrophotographer record the sunspot?

The sunspot region was first documented by McCarthy shortly after it released acolossal X-class solar flare and captured the aftermath of the flare in remarkable detail.

"WOW! This is the same active region that caused those aurora a few weeks ago. It’s finished rotating around the back of the sun and ready to cause some havoc again!" wrote McCarthy, in apost on X.

On the third day of observing the historic sunspot as it started its journey back around to face the Earth, the plasma loops, which were recorded by McCarthy, appeared to "dance" across the sun's surface.

"This is a timelapse video I recorded over a period of roughly 90 minutes- you can watch how the sped-up plasma dances like flames…. Except the "flames" are larger than Earth," wrote McCarthy, on X.

On May 29, McCarthy explained the huge amount of work that goes on behind the scenes.

"This is what it looks like when I manually align each tile of a solar mosaic. I do it manually because I get an intimate look at each panel- so I know if I need to go back and restack it," wrote McCarthy on X.

(With inputs from agencies)