Solar Tornadoes and Weather Listen in RealAudio Email Your Comments

Dave Thurlow, Host

 
Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. Thanks to the SOHO spacecraft, a satellite that continually analyzes the sun, astronomers at England's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have recently discovered a spinning funnel-like phenomenon on the suns surface. They've named their discovery 'solar tornadoes', due to the resemblance to tornadoes here on earth.

SOHO discovers super-hot, super-fast solar tornadoes.

But, do solar tornadoes have any affect on the weather here on earth? Directly...no. Indirectly...perhaps. The tornadoes form near the poles of the sun. This is also where the solar wind, which is high velocity gas particles that escape from the sun, originates. And the solar wind DOES affect us here on earth. It's the possible connection with the solar wind that has astronomer David Pike so intrigued with solar tornadoes.

"One of the fundamental questions we'd like to answer is what is the origin of this solar wind, because we know the materials that comes off of the sun impacts on the earth's environment. And of course, it must have some effect on the earth and the earth's climate and people on the earth. At the moment we're not clear whether the tornadoes contribute to the solar wind."

But even if there isn't a connection between solar wind and solar tornadoes, Dr. Pike knows the tornadoes prove that the sun continues to be very active after billions of years:

"As well as looking at the more fundamental questions, every so often you get a surprise like the tornadoes. Do they tell us something fundamental about the sun or are they just a minor consequence of what's going on in the atmosphere? I think they as a set of objects clarify that the sun is a very active star."

Active enough to create it's own tornadoes. The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.