Solar tornado filmed on sun

A giant solar tornado believed to be as large as the Earth has been captured by a NASA satellite.

A video of the phenomenon was recorded by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a sun-watching satellite that has transmitted a series of stunning photos of solar flares in recent months.

The tornados are made up of dark plasma sliding across the surface of the Sun, with gusts of up to 480,000 km/h.

Terry Kucera, deputy Solar and Heliospheric Observatory project scientist of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center told Fox news the ribbon shapes could span hundreds of thousands of miles.

“In total length, this could be dozens of Earths — quite large,” she said.

Getting high-resolution recordings of the spectacular tornadoes was not possible until the launch of SDO, she said.

The satellite has several cameras on board that capture solar activity in different wavelengths and frequencies.