The findings were unveiled when scientists led by Simone Di Matteo re-evaluated 45-year-old Helios data, according to ScienceDaily.com. The researchers discovered ’otherworldly bubbles’ invisible to the naked eye which resemble the bubbles of a lava lamp. The mega-globules form on the surface of the Sun and extend towards the Earth’s atmosphere as part of the ‘solar wind’.
The space blobs, which are 50 to 500 times the size of Earth, ooze from the Sun every 90 minutes or so.
But when giant blobs of solar wind collide with the magnetosphere, they can trigger interference with satellites and everyday communications signals, ScienceDaily.com reports.
Mr Di Matteo found the blobs in data collected by two Helios spacecraft launched in 1974 and 1976 by NASA in collaboration with Germany.
Commenting on his findings, the space physics PhD student at the University of L’Aquila in Italy said: “It’s too perfect!
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“It can’t be real.”
Mr Di Matteo’s research was the start of a project NASA scientists undertook in anticipation of the first data from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission, which launched in 2018.
The unmanned probe made its closer-ever approach to the Sun yesterday, plunging into the Sun’s fiery corona in a historic attempt to shed light on the nearest star to Earth.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft the size of a small family car, is the closest a man-made object has ever been to the Sun.
Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe project scientist, said: “Parker Solar Probe is providing us with the measurements essential to understanding solar phenomena that have been puzzling us for decades.
“To close the link, local sampling of the solar corona and the young solar wind is needed and Parker Solar Probe is doing just that.”
Mr Di Matteo’s research into “dotted trails of blobs that oozed from the Sun every 90 minutes or so” could also help to shed light on the blazing world of the Sun.
Commenting on the Parker Solar Probe mission, Mr Di Matteo said: “When a mission like Parker is going to see things no one has seen before, just a hint of what could be observed is really helpful.”