Tornado-like phenomenon spotted on sun

Tornado-like phenomenon consisting of a swirling column of plasma took place on the sun and it was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Hyderabad: A tornado-like phenomenon consisting of a swirling column of plasma that is 14 times as large as the earth took place on the sun. The huge column of plasma was caught by NASA‘s Solar Dynamics Observatory on March 17 at Sun’s North Pole. The tornado-like thing appeared for three days and swirled at a height of 120,000 kilometers or 75,000 miles before it turned into a cloud of magnetized gas.

Tornadoes occurring on the sun are called solar tornadoes or solar prominences and they occur due to the whipping of magnetic fields in the sun’s plasma.

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Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy captured the video of the solar tornado with his solar telescope and shared the same on his Twitter account.

“I spent 3 hours yesterday with my solar telescope pointed at a tall tornado-y-looking thing on the sun. This 14-Earths-tall swirling column of plasma was raining moon-sized gobs of incandescent material on the sun. I can’t imagine a more hellish place, he tweeted along with the video.

He also took to Twitter to share the picture of the 140-megapixel image of the sun. The picture was generated with a combination of over 90,000 images meticulously layered and processed to give space enthusiasts a never seen experience.

Watch it here

I spent 3 hours yesterday with my solar telescope pointed at a tall tornado-y looking thing on the sun. This 14-Earths-tall swirling column of plasma was raining moon-sized gobs of incandescent material on the sun. I can't imagine a more hellish place. pic.twitter.com/dewzNEAEJA

— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) March 18, 2023