Tornadoes as large as Europe form on the surface of the Sun. Their origin has been reconstructed thanks to research being published in the Astronomy & Astrophysics magazine and coordinated by Italy, with Mariarita Murabito, of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), and to which Marco Stangalini, of the Space Agency has collaborated Italian (Asi).
The gigantic swirls of gas at very high temperature, which stretch for thousands of kilometers in the atmosphere of our star, are produced by magnetic fields and last several tens of minutes. Observing them in detail was possible thanks to the IAF (Interferometric Bidimensional Spectrometer) Ibis instrument, installed at the Dst Solar Telescope (Dst) in New Mexico, United States.
"The images collected - said Murabito - allowed us to carry out a three-dimensional tomography of the magnetic fields that twist around the solar tornadoes". These tornadoes, experts specify, connect different layers of the atmosphere of our star, acting as channels for the transport of energy to the most external regions.
For Stangalini, studying them "is of fundamental importance for understanding the heating mechanisms of the outer layers of the atmosphere and the acceleration of the solar wind", which has a significant influence on Earth.