Via JMG: NASA Films Solar Tornado

Amazing and cool.

A giant solar tornado - five times the Earth's diameter - swirling at incredible speed of some 186,000 mph has been captured on video by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. ­This is the first time a giant solar twister has been caught on video. Solar tornadoes, known as solar prominences, are shaped by the sun's magnetic field and often occur during coronal mass ejections -- huge explosions of solar plasma. The speed of swirling solar gases can sometimes reach several thousand miles per hour.

Five entire Earths could fit inside that twister? Yikes.

Labels: astronomy, NASA, solar power

Reposted from Joe