[chimera (OP)]

Actually, they are more like tornadoes than anything else, although the technical term would be 'gustnado', to be precise. They are storms on the surface of the sun, or more accurately, rather ABOVE the 'surface' of the sun - from the side they look amazingly much like tornadoes. They reach very high rotational speeds, explains the Evershed effect, and also why they are cooler than their surroundings, and can stay that way for months.

Gustnado:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustnado

Evershed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evershed_effect

Just happened to see something (very) peculiar while watching some old solar footage, and did some research, and it all pans out. Am still uploading the material to my website, bit of movie + pics + links to supportive evidence, all perfectly legit and of unsuspected origin. Should have that up later today, will post links then, I don't think this forum supports such large pics + movie (if not, please tell me where to upload it, if that's preffered).

This is not a BS post, I was just eager to get it out, I think it's a pretty cool find.

One supportive link already:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/380394

but that little bit of footage really is a must-see, pics speak louder than a kazillion words.  [:I]

edit: added links

Short detail movie (Quicktime) from the Trace database - does not give much idea as to size and persistence:
http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/movies/T171_991127.mov

The earth on this scale (yep, find the blue spot) :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Sun,_Earth_size_comparison.jpg

Footage with them coming over the horizon left top, 2-3 secs into the movie, can't miss them really (WMV format):
http://aidanederland.nl/downloads/Solar_Tornadoes.wmv

If you look closely at that whole area (you have to play it a few times), you can see filaments shooting up in the background too, like beginning tornadoes on earth, and I found some close-up footage of that as well:
http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/movies/Tornadoes_000802.mov

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Formation ideas:(think this one wins)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroclinic_instability

Comets: (nah, look at the size of those things, must have been quite hefty comets to punch holes that size)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001AGUSM..SP51B13G

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Wouldn't be surprised if those things just give certain particles that extra  bit of kick to make it off the surface in sufficient quantities, and without them life-as-we-know-it on Earth would be 'obviously impossible'. They are so weird they probably also turn out to be indispensible in planetary evolution or something.

Well, even if they don't - they are the biggest meanest twisters I've ever seen.  []

[chimera (OP)]

Few extra links to make a bit more sense of those last bold suggestions:

(Possible) Planet formation and sunspots:
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=2090

Geological influences of solar cycles:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v318/n6046/abs/318523a0.html

Some particles getting a boost, others not:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/tj84m771xxm58347/

Anomalous polarizations over sunspots:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/288/5470/1396

I read they even find spectrograph lines indicating there's *water* (H2O) in sunspots - really wonder how skewed those readings are, and how fast that 'water' was actually moving when they took its signature.