Sun Tornado captured rising from the Sun.

19 April 2023 Noah Perreault

The popularity of amateur astrophotography is on the rise within the astronomy community, thanks to the advancements in telescope and camera technologies. With these improvements, individuals from diverse backgrounds can now observe celestial objects, including the Sun, in incredible detail, as long as they use the appropriate protective equipment.

Andrew McCarthy, the proprietor of Cosmic Background Studios (@AJamesMcCarthy on Twitter), showcased this phenomenon through a recent demonstration.

“This is a solar prominence in the sun’s chromosphere, A mass of plasma caught in a magnetic loop, drawing it away from the photosphere and over a hundred thousand miles into space. Solar material ‘rains’ down from the prominence back into the sun.”

McCarthy collaborated with colleague, Jason Guenzel (@TheVastReaches on Twitter), to produce a breathtaking 140 megapixel still image of the Sun with the tornado visible in the upper portion of the image.

layers of the Sun, including the solar prominence, chromosphere, photosphere, and corona. This is because while the Sun appears to be a uniform structure on the surface, it contains layers just like the Earth and other celestial objects.

The part of the Sun that we see in our daily lives and through telescopes is called the photosphere, which constitutes a mere 100 kilometers in thickness, making it insignificant in comparison to the Sun’s diameter of about 1,400,000 kilometers. The photosphere has a temperature range of 3700 to 6200 degrees Celsius. Above the photosphere lies the irregular layer known as the chromosphere, spanning about 2500 kilometers in thickness and with a temperature range of 6000 to 20,000 degrees Celsius.

The Sun gives rise to significant, luminous structures called solar prominences, like the tornado-like entity that McCarthy captured, and can have temperatures ranging from 4700 to 50,000 degrees Celsius. The outermost region of the Sun’s atmosphere, known as the solar corona, has the highest temperature, measuring up to 2 million degrees Celsius. Only during solar eclipses, the corona becomes visible to the human eye.

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