n a striking new view from space, the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter has given scientists their first close-up glimpse of the sun's magnetic field near its south pole — and it is behaving in surprising ways.

The image above, a composite of eight days of observations taken in March when the spacecraft had its first clear view of the region, shows bright arcs sweeping around the pole — glowing traces left by magnetic structures drifting toward the sun's edge at unexpectedly high speeds. The findings reveal the sun's magnetic field is migrating toward its poles much faster than scientists predicted.

"To understand the sun's magnetic cycle, we still lack knowledge of what happens at the sun's poles," Sami Solanki, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany who co-authored the paper, said in a statement. "Solar Orbiter can now provide this missing piece of the puzzle."