Plasma Effect

Just a question I thought I''d pop to some of you more knowledged than I am when it comes to OGL. What would you consider as the best approach to making a plasma, oozing, swirling effect? Imagine I have a textured sphere that is supposed to be a Sun, and I want the contents/texture to swirl around and stuff, like its burning - How would you, the people that know OGLs ins and outs, accomplish this? I''m asking because whatever way I get the effect done, it''s going to require a sizable chunk of time to do the graphics, effects code, etc. and I''d rather invest that time into a good implementation . Thanks for any help/suggestions you can provide.