• Question: What caused the tornado on the sun?

    Asked by crouchingmurloc to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 17 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      They are thought to be caused by plasma from the surface of the sun getting caught up in very active, twisting regions of the sun’s magnetic field.

      They are huge, powerful and very very scary.

      Deeply cool though.

    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      I’ve never heard of solar tornados before today but am glad I know now. Apparently there are 11,o00 of these happening on the sun at any one time and they can have speeds of upto 10,000 km/hour! How cool is that.

      I can’t add anything to Dave’s explination but thanks for the interesting question.

    • Photo: Susana Teixeira

      Susana Teixeira answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      Well, I don’t know! But for once we know it’s not global warming…

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