Activity on the Sun Ramps Up with Monster Prominences; Huge Filament Snaps

By Nancy Atkinson - November 15, 2011 at 6:31 AM UTC | Solar Astronomy
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A huge wall of plasma rose from the Sun's southeast limb over the weekend, with what might be one of the biggest prominences seen in many years. César Cantu from Monterrey, Mexico, took the image above, adding an "Earth" for reference of how big this prominence really is. A solar prominence is a large, bright feature extending outward from the Sun's surface. Prominences are anchored to the Sun's surface in the photosphere, and can loop hundreds of thousands of kilometers into space.

Leonard Mercer from Malta sent us the image below, saying "I never encountered such a huge prominence since I started imaging the Sun."

[caption id="attachment_90992" align="aligncenter" width="557" caption="A mosaic of 4 images taken of the Sun on Nov. 13, 2011. Credit: Leonard Mercer. "]

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As large as this prominence is, there was also another even larger feature on the Sun. A filament (which is a prominence that is viewed against the solar disk) on the upper left snakes across the Sun's surface, stretching more than a million km or about three times the distance between Earth and the Moon.

The video below from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the filament intact at first, and then later, from 13:00 to 16:00 UT on November 14, 2011, the filament shoots up from the Sun's surface and snaps apart.

The SDO team explains that the red-glowing looped material is plasma, a hot gas comprised of electrically charged hydrogen and helium. The prominence plasma flows along a tangled and twisted structure of magnetic fields generated by the Sun's internal dynamo. An erupting prominence occurs when such a structure becomes unstable and bursts outward, releasing the plasma.

Despite all this activity, there hasn't been much as far as solar flares, but

Spaceweather.com

encourages anyone with solar telescopes to monitor developments.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com