Journey into a giant magnetic tornado on the sun

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

You probably wouldn't want to get sucked into a giant magnetic tornado on the sun. But now you can get up close without feeling the effect thanks to a new animation by Sven Wedemeyer-B?hm from the University of Oslo in Norway and colleagues that simulates the evolution of the swirling activity.

The red lines in the video depict the magnetic field, while the green strands represent the velocity in the tornado's vortex. The spiralling activity begins when convection near the sun's surface pulls downwards, twisting magnetic fields and plasma (shown in yellow) above it. This transports energy from the sun's surface to its uppermost layer, heating up the outer atmosphere.

Compared to tornadoes on Earth, solar twisters are much bigger, some covering areas as big as Europe or America, and with winds that blow at tens of thousands of kilometres per hour.

To find out more about what recent research has revealed about the phenomenon, read our full article, Astrophile: Solar cyclones hold fusion reactor clues

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