Video: Solar Dynamics Observatory Captures Earth-sized Tornado on the Sun

Posted on February 18, 2012

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured a solar tornado. The video shows the sun's plasma spinning in a form that resembles a tornado.

Terry Kucera, deputy SOHO project scientist and a solar physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told Fox News, that the cause of this event, classified as a solar prominence, is magnetism and not pressure and temperature differences, which help cause them on Earth. Kucera also says the solar tornado seen in this video could be as big as the Earth with wind speeds of 300,000 mph.

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