Solar tornadoes dance across sun in video

A NASA spacecraft has captured an amazing video of solar twisters blowing across the surface of the sun.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46434871/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.Tz8nV_GPUzc

The tornado-style eruptions of super-hot plasma were spotted by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is constantly recording high-definition videos of the sun.

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The sun tornado video shows swirling fountains of plasma creeping across the surface of the sun during a 30-hour period between Feb. 7 and 8. But unlike tornadoes on Earth, which are wind-driven phenomena, the sun's plasma tornadoes are shaped by the powerful magnetic field of our star.

"An active region rotating into view provides a bright backdrop to the gyrating streams of plasma," SDO mission scientists explained in a video description. "The particles are being pulled this way and that by competing magnetic forces. They are tracking along strands of magnetic field lines."

In the video, cooler plasma material appears as darker spots on a bright background. The SDO spacecraft recorded the video in the extreme ultraviolet range of the light spectrum, giving the movie an eerie yellow hue.

NASA released the new SDO video to mark the second anniversary of the spacecraft's mission, which launched on Feb. 11, 2010. The $850 million spacecraft is on a five-year mission to record high-definition videos of the sun to help astronomers better understand how changes in the sun's solar weather cycle can affect life on Earth.

The sun is currently in an active period of its 11-year weather cycle. The current cycle is known as Solar Cycle 24 and will peak in 2013.

You can follow Space.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow Space.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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