Space tornadoes power the atmosphere of the Sun Mathematicians
at the University of Sheffield, as part of an international
team, have discovered tornadoes in space which could hold the
key to power the atmosphere of the Sun to millions of kelvin.
The super tornadoes - which are thousands of times larger and
more powerful than their earthly counterparts but which have a
magnetic skeleton - spin at speeds of more than 6,000 mph at
temperatures in millions of centigrade in the Sun’s atmosphere.
They are more than 1,000 miles wide – hundreds of miles longer
than the total distance between Land’s End to John O’Groats. It
is estimated that there are as many as 11,000 of these swirling
events above the Sun’s surface at any time. Applied
mathematicians from the University of Sheffield (Professor
Robertus Erdélyi –senior author, and Dr Viktor Fedun)
collaborating with the University of Oslo in Norway (Drs Sven
Wedemeyer-Böhm – first author, Eamon Scullion – a Sheffield ex-
postgraduate, Luc Rouppe van de Voort), Kiepen