It’s Tornado Season on the Sun

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory released a video that captured multiple ‘sun tornadoes,’ or plasma moving across the sun’s surface. 

This type of violent space weather has the potential to create major problems for human activities, for instance, by damaging communication satellites. 

Watch the video, which is sped up to cover a 38-hour period, from June 3-4, here:

“Given the growing importance of space to our nation’s economic well being and security, it is of increasing importance that NASA and its partner agencies continue to advance our nation’s capability to understand and predict space weather events,” said NASA’s Charles Bolden in a public address before scientists and industry members at the Space Weather Enterprise Forum earlier this month.

Read more here.