A NASA spacecraft that keeps close watch of the sun, helping to warn of incoming solar storms that can harm the power grid on Earth, recently captured something extraordinary.
This video, taken by the Solar Dynamics Laboratory, or SDO, shows a mass of solar plasma being ejected from the surface of the sun between Sept. 1 through Sept. 3. For 40 hours, this "complex mass of plasma" spun around and gyrated like a spinning top, NASA said.
"It was stretched and pulled back and forth by powerful magnetic forces but not ripped apart in this sequence," the agency said on its website.
While this may look like a tornado, similar to those that occur on Earth, it's a tad bit milder than the conditions in which most tornadoes form.