Bibcode
                                    
                            DOI
                                    
                            Bonet, J. A.; Márquez, I.; Sánchez Almeida, J.; Cabello, I.; Domingo, V.
    Bibliographical reference
                                    The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 687, Issue 2, pp. L131-L134.
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                        11
            
                        2008
            
  Journal
                                    
                            Citations
                                    191
                            Refereed citations
                                    175
                            Description
                                    We have discovered small whirlpools in the Sun, with a size similar to
terrestrial hurricanes (<~0.5 Mm). The theory of solar convection
predicts them, but they had remained elusive so far. The vortex flows
are created at the downdrafts where the plasma returns to the solar
interior after cooling down, and we detect them because some magnetic
bright points (BPs) follow a logarithmic spiral on their way to being
engulfed by a downdraft. Our disk-center observations show 0.9 ×
10-2 vortexes per Mm2, with a lifetime of the
order of 5 minutes, and with no preferred sense of rotation. They are
not evenly spread out over the surface, but they seem to trace the
supergranulation and the mesogranulation. These observed properties are
strongly biased by our type of measurement, unable to detect vortexes
except when they are engulfing magnetic BPs.