The “Solar Dynamics Observatory” (abbreviated SDO) of the American space agency NASA has been observing our sun for 13 years and has been continuously sending images to Earth ever since. A few days ago, the probe filmed a giant tornado of hot plasma from its vantage point in space (see video above).
The giant plasma tornado built on the surface of our central star for days, eventually reaching a height equivalent to about 14 Earth diameters. With a speed of almost 500,000 kilometers per hour, it swirled around the north pole of the sun for three days. Drops of glowing material the size of our moon rained down from the huge plasma column.
“I can’t think of a hellish place,” Twitter user Andrew James McCarthy wrote. That reports the New York Post the tornado’s temperature should reach nearly 250,000 degrees Celsius — that’s significantly hotter than the sun’s surface, which has a temperature of “only” around 5,800 degrees.
Tornadoes controlled by magnetism
Unlike on Earth, tornadoes on the Sun are driven by magnetism. The sun’s magnetic fields spin in a frantic spiral, pulling up huge clouds of plasma that then fall back toward the sun’s surface. Our central star is quite active at the moment. The reason for this is the solar cycle, which repeats itself every eleven years.
Research in space for over 13 years
Launched in early February 2010, the Solar Dynamics Observatory orbits at an altitude of 34,600 kilometers in geosynchronous orbit, allowing it to continuously observe our central star. The SDO collects about a terabyte of information every day and transmits it to Earth. Science is primarily interested in how the magnetic field of our central star affects the rest of our solar system, including the Earth.
Source: Krone
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