Solar Tornado Five Times Wider Than Earth Dazzles Space Weather Experts (VIDEO)

By: SPACE.com Staff
Published: 03/29/2012 09:58 AM EDT on SPACE.com

A NASA spacecraft has captured video of a massive solar "tornado" five times wider than the Earth twisting its way across the surface of the sun.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) looked on as the huge, swirling storm raged on Sept. 25, 2011, spinning solar gas at speeds up to 186,000 mph (300,000 kph), researchers said. Here on Earth, tornado wind speeds top out at around 300 mph (483 kph). 

"This is perhaps the first time that such a huge solar tornado is filmed by an imager," Xing Li of Aberystwyth University in Wales, who analyzed the SDO footage, said in a statement. "Previously, much smaller solar tornadoes were found by the [NASA/European Space Agency] SOHO satellite. But they were not filmed."

Li and other researchers will present a movie of the tornado Thursday (March 29) at the 2012 National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester, the United Kingdom.

SDO's instruments saw gases as hot as 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit (2 million degrees Celsius) rise from a dense solar structure called a prominence, then travel about 124,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) along a spiral path into the upper solar atmosphere, researchers said.  

Unlike Earth's tornados, which are driven by wind, solar twisters are shaped by our star's powerful magnetic field. They often occur in concert with violent explosions of solar plasma known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. Some researchers think the tornados may help trigger CMEs, which can streak through space at several million miles per hour.

CMEs that hit Earth can wreak havoc on our planet, causing temporary disruptions in GPS signals, radio communications and power grids. They also typically supercharge the dazzling light shows near Earth's poles known as the northern and southern lights.

The $850 million SDO spacecraft, which launched in February 2010, is the first in a fleet of NASA efforts to study our sun. The probe's five-year mission is the cornerstone of a NASA science program called Living with a Star, which aims to help researchers better understand aspects of the sun-Earth system that affect our lives and society.

The sun is currently in an active period of its 11-year weather cycle. The current cycle is known as Solar Cycle 24 and will peak in 2013.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

• Huge 'Tornado' Churns on Sun's Surface - Close-Up Video
• Stunning Photos of Solar Flares & Sun Storms
• The Sun's Wrath: Worst Solar Storms in History

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WATCH: ANOTHER SOLAR TORNADO FROM FEB, 2012 PHOTOS: AMAZING AURORAS FROM 2011

Comments

[StephenJK]

06:49 PM on 03/31/2012

http://gramercyimages.com/blog1/tag/rate-of-decay-speeding-up/

Just a blog some guy wrote. But, it's based on a somewhat startling discovery made by researchers regarding radioactive decay. It was thought to be a static phenomena. Well, that is no more. The rates of decay have been speeding up over the past several years. Researchers don't know why. The human body contains several radioactive elements in it. So this is also affecting us. We have NO idea what we're going through right now. Basically, we've been rendered impotent by emerging realities that humanity has (and obviously science itself) never experienced.

Thanks to Keng181 for bringing up the interesting point about radioactive decay acceleration.

[keng181]

02:07 PM on 04/01/2012

you're welcome!
and thank for the article
I suspect that ancient society had better understanding of the time we are in now than we do today. take the maya people. though they are often misinterpreted for predicting the "end of the world" or something like that, the were predicting a great shift in our reality and in the consciousness of living beings. An interesting source for any who are interested in delving deeper, check out the book: The Source Field Investigations" by David Wilcock

It has a rich collection of scientific research sourced from various places and researchers around the world that can effectively shatter the common mainstream scientific perception of reality. (i know because i have a degree in physics) And its all empirical data. enjoy.

[LMPE]

06:14 PM on 03/31/2012

So, was Dorothy's house anywhere in there?

[ethiopia1a]

02:13 PM on 03/30/2012

Earth, the Jerry Springer show of the universe

[R Andrew Ohge]

10:28 PM on 03/31/2012

I was reading this...and someone hit me with a chair...

[SiriusMrE]

09:59 AM on 03/30/2012

"Some researchers think the tornados may help trigger CMEs..." Maybe the "tornado" IS the CME.

To whit: "Solar flares can be thought of as giant lightning discharges."
Solar Lightning: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2011/arch11/110304solar.htm

Also: Solar Tornadoes: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041015solar-tornado.htm

[Mel Walker]

04:31 AM on 03/30/2012

looks like a girl dancing, awesome.

[SiriusMrE]

10:19 AM on 03/30/2012

Indeed. It's plasma. The term was coined for this electrified form of matter because of its life-like motions, which resembled blood plasma. Because all things in the Universe are connected and fractal in nature, it should come as no surprise that this plasma form looks like it does.

Indeed, it was probably auroral displays--yet another form of plasma--(perhaps more intense and long-lasting than anything we see today) that inspired many mythic motifs that still echo through most cultures to this day.

[StephenJK]

04:10 AM on 03/30/2012

ANGRY SUN 2012

[Mike Jones]

04:06 AM on 03/30/2012

AFTER WHILE WE GONNA SEE SOMETHING WE WISH WE DID'NT

[StephenJK]

03:56 AM on 03/30/2012

Vortices of EM energy of the most intense order. Through the dark rift we go, baby!

[Lostbandoleer]

03:48 AM on 03/30/2012

When?

[word2thenooch]

02:36 AM on 03/30/2012

powerful stuff out there

[rockbluesdrummer]

02:05 AM on 03/30/2012

Bewere the end is near,,,,, 12,21,2012

[ranwolf1976]

02:11 AM on 03/30/2012

no it's not

[farrands1]

02:13 AM on 03/30/2012

I'm more frightened of people who don't know how to spell "beware."

[Wayne Howe]

02:39 AM on 03/30/2012

lol

[plethera]

04:39 AM on 03/30/2012

haha. Nice!

[sdgfine]

01:59 AM on 03/30/2012

I'm STILL waiting for Al Gore to blame my tailpipe for THIS TOO......

[lex19999]

05:13 AM on 03/30/2012

Thou shall be waiting many moons 4 that 2 happen.

[guitar7masta]

01:05 PM on 03/30/2012

JA JA JA I LOVE HYPERBOLE'S

[brinck3]

01:51 AM on 03/30/2012

Combine all the solar flares and storms and oil spills we have makes earth a ticking time bomb.

[StephenJK]

03:59 AM on 03/30/2012

We don't have any idea what we're going through right now. Notice how clueless meterologists are these days. They'll predict a temp for the coming week and with each passing day, they're raising their prediction up to fit reality. Why is that? Maybe because humanity has never been through what we're going through right now.

[guitar7masta]

01:10 PM on 03/30/2012

how exactly does watching a solar storm or solar flare relate to weatherman? those are two completely different fields of study. they can much more accurately predict, say, the path of a comet for years to come, than what the weather will be like in 2 weeks

[Robert Masters]

05:38 PM on 03/30/2012

You think that the climate scientists can predict the climate 20 years from now while the meteorologists can't predict tomorrow with accuracy? Of course they cannot.

[lex19999]

05:14 AM on 03/30/2012

Thou hears no ticking.

[grundoboy]

01:49 AM on 03/30/2012

crap,,when will Fema show up?

[lex19999]

05:15 AM on 03/30/2012

Even when they do, it is just like they don`t, cause they are worthless.

[LMPE]

06:17 PM on 03/31/2012

FEMA was perfectly effective as long as it was its own organization. The problem was that after 9/11, Bush shifted it to the DHS, turning it into a bureaucratic nightmare.

[flamealchroy]

01:16 AM on 03/30/2012

That's simply amazing. So beautiful yet a bit scary too...five times wider than the earth? Wow.

[lex19999]

05:17 AM on 03/30/2012

5.01143432264 times, 2 be exact.

[flamealchroy]

01:45 PM on 03/30/2012

shh, my mind was already blown before. My head can't take much more explosions.