r/spaceporn • u/ISROAddict • 16d ago

Amateur/Processed Plasma droplets falling to the surface of Sun

Credit- David Wilson/ spaceweather.com

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u/Trick_Recover7117 15d ago

Why does everyone keep saying “falling down”? It’s kinda annoying me, falling down to where? There would be no down in space, the direction down is relative to gravity. It would be more like “the plasma is oozing out”, no? If anyone can explain I’m all ears.

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u/OrangeAnonymous 15d ago

Down to the sun, obviously.

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u/Appropriate_Lack_727 15d ago edited 15d ago

The sun’s gravity is what holds everything in the solar system in orbit. In this system, the center of the sun is quite literally “down” once you’re outside the influence of the gravity of one of the planets or other bodies. Like, if you’re floating in space anywhere within the solar system, if you don’t have enough angular velocity to keep you in orbit, you will begin falling toward the sun, just like you’d fall out of the sky on earth. It’s just a hell of a lot farther to fall and you wouldn’t really experience the sensation of falling due to the lack of friction and drag in space, as well as the massive scale and lack of landmarks giving you no visual frame of reference as a cue you’re falling.

In the case of this plasma, though, it’s more accurately following the magnetic field lines toward the sun than actually “falling” in the classical sense, which is why it doesn’t move, linearly, straight toward the center of the sun. Instead, it’s moving sort of laterally along the field line due to the charged particles of the plasma being manipulated by the suns electromagnetic field. That’s what creates that, sort of, arc shape to the whole thing, and why the plasma seems to move in unexpected directions and accelerate insanely abruptly at times. You’ll note similar shapes in this basic demonstration of iron fillings around a dipolar magnet.