A new video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows huge blasts of plasma, called solar prominences, curling around the sun’s tumultuous magnetic field. The remarkable activity was captured Nov. 14 to 15 using a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. Never look at the Sun directly yourself – it can lead to blindness!
Solar prominences are relatively cool, dense strands of gas that erupt from the surface of the sun to follow the star’s magnetic field, arcing and twisting before either collapsing back in or ejecting into space to become a solar flare. These prominences can be exceedingly massive — the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft recorded the largest yet seen at 430,000 miles long. That’s equal to the radius of the sun.
Filed under: The Sun
