Truly gorgeous picture of the Sun (plus video)

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory probe is sending back some stunning imagery of the Sun, and this is a real beauty. The brighter spots are actually sun spots.

You can follow posts like this on Twitter through @NASA_SDO.

Smartphone users can also keep up to date with the latest blasts and predictions via the great little 3D Sun app. It's free.

In other happenings to do with the Sun, SDO recorded this amazing video of what look like tornadoes ripping from the surface.


You can also watch a high resolution version. But it needs the Quicktime browser add-in.



But they aren't tornadoes at all, but plasma being pulled along magnetic field lines. NASA explains:

...darker, cooler plasma slid and shifted back and forth above the Sun's surface seen here for 30 hours (Feb. 7-8, 2012) in extreme ultraviolet light. An active region rotating into view provides a bright backdrop to the gyrating streams of plasma. The particles are being pulled this way and that by competing magnetic forces. They are tracking along strands of magnetic field lines.