The sun for most of us is nothing more than a big glaring ball in the sky that
spends light, warmth and sunburns. However with the right equipment, you
will see things on the surface of the un that simply is stunning. The satellite
“SDO” has spotted and filmed a firestorm on September 25th, 2011.

In this storm, gases of 90’000 to 3’600’000°F (50’000 to 2’000’000°C) have twirled upwards from a recent protuberance. The storm itself had wind speeds of 150.000 km/h and a duration of approximately 180 minutes. The two scientists from University of Aberystwyth, Xing Li und Huw Morgan have presented their shots from “SDO” at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester and clearly stated that this is the first time that they have seen such a big solar tornado.

Although these tornados aren’t usually dangerous for us on earth, they can be a source for interferences on the flight traffic and can even disrupt power grids. The last bigger solar storm black-outed some north-american cities for 3 hours.

Fortunately, european cities haven’t been much affected by this as the power grid is less responsive for solar interferences. The rather old and partly desolated power grid in North America is not very likely armed against a bigger solar storm and if something happens like shown in the Perfect disaaster series “Solar Storm”, then you might get an idea of what’s ahead of North America. Time to improve and strengthen the power grid.

It’s not a question that a bigger solar storm will erupt, it’s only the question: “WHEN?”

So here’s the video (replaced, as old video no longer available):