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December 2015 - The Milky Way's Copycat
Report #10 - November 2015
A New Breed Of Tornadoes
If the sun could have its own weather forecast on its surface, what would there be? How about tornadoes? Solar style. Here on Earth, we are very familiar with the term "tornadoes," what they are, and they behave, but what about the sun's? Well, here's the deal: scientists have been rubbing their chins for quite some time about whether or not the sun truly has tornadoes spinning on its surface. An edited version of NASA's video (left), that was created thanks to spacecraft SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory), might look to be sufficent evidence to answer this question, but the sun has a history for illusions.
"Tornado Season On The Sun" Youtube Video
The Sun's Trickery
There is a reason why we can't assume, based on video footage, that there are truly tornadoes on the sun. The reason is the sun's invisible magnetic field, which is known for distorting the sun's true appearence by twisting charged gas (plasma) into various patterns. Video footage, like the one shown above that was taken in February 2012, is difficult for astronomers to interpret because the explanation could go both ways. Some scientists believe such tornado-like phenomenons are "2-D projections of 3-D motions," while others feel that this spinning plasma is actually twisting. Regardless, through recent observations, this material of charged gas is believed to be moving to and from Earth in a genuine rotation. Such discoveries may explain how these "sun tornadoes" are formed: simply by clustered magnetic fields at the sun's surface, which would create this "dance of plasama" when they become "tangled" with each other.
What Can these Solar "Tornadoes" Do?
Like everything else about the sun compared to Earth, Earth's tornadoes are nothing like the twisters/tornadoes of the sun. In fact, these strings of spinning plasma extend 20 miles out from the sun's surface. From within it, plasma spins at speeds over 11,000 mph! These characteristics make the Earth's tornadoes, which spin at a maxiumun of 300 mph, sound like child's play by a long shot.
Snapshots taken from SDO's video footage, that was shot in February 2012, of the sun's cryptic plasma twister
The recorded twister-like plumes of plasma (as shown in the three photos above) were discovered and observed over the "upper-left limb" of the sun.
SOURCES:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=11691