On March 18th it spun out and hurled a cloud of magnetized gas into space. Solar magnetic fields twist in a furious spiral, dragging clouds of plasma around with them. Unlike tornadoes on Earth, which are shaped by wind, tornadoes on the sun are controlled by magnetism. "It was twisting and growing nonstop for 3 days." "I've never seen anything like it in all my years of watching the sun," he says. "This thing was twisting and growing for 3 days," says Apollo Lasky of Naperville, Illinois, who made the following movie using images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory: SOLAR TORNADO : For much of the past week, astronomers have been watching a colossal "solar tornado" dance near the sun's North Pole. Because of the Russell-McPherron effect, even a slight gust of solar wind around the equinoxes can spark a good display of high-latitude auroras. This is perfect timing for aurora chasers. The solar wind will reach Earth on March 23-24, only a few days after the vernal equinox.
It looks dark in this ultraviolet image because glowing-hot gas normally contained there is missing. This is a "coronal hole" - a region in the sun's atmosphere where magnetic fields open up and allow solar wind to escape. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the structure on March 20th: Aurora alerts: SMS Text.Ī LARGE HOLE IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE : A large hole has opened in the sun's atmosphere, and it is spewing a stream of solar wind toward Earth. A similar eruption last week sparked auroras at both ends of our planet. The CME was hurled into space on March 17th by the eruption of a magnetic filament containing dark plasma. GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH : Minor ( G1-class) geomagnetic storms are possible on March 20-21 due to a glancing blow from an incoming CME. Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth are slowly declining-a result of the yin-yang relationship between the solar cycle and cosmic rays. Credit: SDO/HMIĬosmic Rays Solar Cycle 25 is intensifying, and this is reflected in the number of cosmic rays entering Earth's atmosphere. Sunspot complex AR3256-57 poses a threat for M-class solar flares.
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