Astronomy Picture of the Day -- A Solar Filament Erupts

NASA ^ | July 20, 2014 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: What's happened to our Sun? Nothing very unusual -- it just threw a filament. Toward the middle of 2012, a long standing solar filament suddenly erupted into space producing an energetic Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The filament had been held up for days by the Sun's ever changing magnetic field and the timing of the eruption was unexpected. Watched closely by the Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, the resulting explosion shot electrons and ions into the Solar System, some of which arrived at Earth three days later and impacted Earth's magnetosphere, causing visible aurorae. Loops of plasma surrounding an active region can be seen above the erupting filament in the ultraviolet image. Over the past week the number of sunspots visible on the Sun unexpectedly dropped to zero, causing speculation that the Sun has now passed a very unusual solar maximum, the time in the Sun's 11-year cycle when it is most active.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: NASA's GSFC, SDO AIA Team]

[SunkenCiv]

This has been used before by APoD, but this is not duplicative because of my error. :')

The Big One

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[left that other site]

WOW!

[TheOldLady]

Two years ago or not, it’s a spectacular CME.

Thank you, Sir.

[SunkenCiv]

I set my wallpaper at work to a nice Apollo 11 surface pic, and plan to use this one here in the near future. :’)

[TheOldLady]

It's amazing, perfect for wallpaper.

Good lookin' and you have good taste to boot!

I have my husband holding my late Rocket (cat) as my wallpaper.
Probably won't change it again.



Image reduced for bandwidth and space.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) It’s a nice one!

[TheOldLady]

Thank you, Sir.