Huge Solar Prominence Erupts

reply to post by tonycodes


Happens quite frequently in solar prominences that a portion of the plasma is taken back into the surface of the sun:







The plasma flows along the magnetic field lines and thence back to the sun.

"Filaments are formed in magnetic loops that hold relatively cool, dense gas suspended above the surface of the Sun," explains David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "When you look down on top of them they appear dark because the gas inside is cool compared to the hot photosphere below. But when we see a filament in profile against the dark sky it looks like a giant glowing loop -- these are called prominences and they can be spectacular."

...

"Filaments collapse when the magnetic field in their vicinity becomes unstable," explained Hathaway. "This could happen, for example, if new magnetic field lines begin to poke through the Sun's surface beneath the filament."

WHAT ARE SOLAR FILAMENTS AND PROMINENCES?

reply to post by jadedANDcynical

Thankyou Jade for all that stuff about magnetosphere. The sun is immense. It has many more field lines than earth. and many more "centers of gravity". Heres a pic:

Stuff we can't see on the sun but it is there

Really makes you wonder about the different densities within the sun itself. Is there a swarm of singularities swimming around each other making all those field lines? We have always thought of the sun as one big mass (and it is), but maybe its a mass of masses all jumbled and fighting amongst themselves, annihilating and absorbing each other with the overall ball of flame the result? Hey, that would be kind of like the nucleus of an atom they way they draw it wouldn't it? All lumpy with many protons and neutrons? Hmmm...