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"Solar Rossby waves are gigantic in size, with wavelengths comparable to the solar radius," study co-author Laurent Gizon, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, said in a statement. (The average radius of the sun is a whopping 432,450 miles, or 696,000 kilometers.) Even so, these waves move very slowly, with shallow troughs and peaks, so they aren't always easy to detect, especially amid the other swirls and disturbances on a body as lively as the sun. … Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the University of Göttingen (both in Germany), New York University...

Scientists at Queen's University have made a finding that will help us to understand more about the turbulent solar weather and its effect on our planet. Along with scientists at the University of Sheffield and California State University, the researchers have detected giant twisting waves in the lower atmosphere of the Sun.*******************The twist applied to magnetic field lines in the solar atmosphere induce an upward propagating Alfvén wave. (Credit: Image courtesy of Queen's University Belfast)