Spectacular Filament Eruption on the Sun Captured by SDO

By Nancy Atkinson - September 1, 2012 at 2:54 PM UTC | Solar Astronomy

Yikes! Not to be outdone by the Blue Moon, the Sun had some impressive action on August 31, 2012 as well. A solar filament collapsed and and exploded, and the Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the action in dramatic detail. The view in extreme ultraviolet light is simply jaw-dropping! The segment in the 304 angstroms wavelength (where the Sun looks red) covers almost 3 hours of elapsed time.

The SDO team says that long filaments like this one have been known to collapse with explosive results when they hit the stellar surface below. According to

SpaceWeather.com

, the CME propelled by the blast might deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field in the days ahead.

The image above includes an image of Earth to show the size of the CME compared to the size of Earth. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Screen grab from the video showing the view in extreme ultraviolet light. Credit: SDO

See more at

SDO's website

and

You Tube site.

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