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Can Tornados Happen in Space?

-- | May 18, 2014

Question: Can tornados happen in space? Maybe solar winds can act like earth winds with currents and temperature changes? — Jay

Answer: Although the interstellar medium within galaxies, or the gas and dust between stars (including the solar wind) can produce turbulent phenomena, these are generally not considered to be cousins to the atmospheric tornados we measure on Earth. The solar wind does sometimes produce funnel-shaped clouds of charged particles which are sometimes referred to as “space tornados”, but these are very different from Earth’s atmospheric tornados.

Jeff Mangum

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