Credit & Copyright: Pete Lawrence
Explanation:
What's happening at the edge of the Sun?
Although it may look like a
monster is rampaging,
what is pictured is actually only a monster prominence -- a sheath of thin gas held
above the surface by the
Sun's magnetic field.
The solar event was captured just this past weekend with a small telescope, with
the resulting image then
inverted and
false-colored.
As indicated with illustrative lines, the
prominence
rises over 50,000 kilometers above the
Sun's surface,
making even our 12,700-diameter
Earth seem
small by comparison.
Below the
monster prominence is
active region 12585,
while light colored filaments can be seen hovering over a flowing
solar carpet of fibrils.
Filaments are actually prominences seen against the disk of the Sun, while similarly,
fibrils are actually spicules
seen against the disk.
Energetic events like this are becoming less common as the Sun evolves toward a minimum
in its
11-year activity cycle.
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APOD 2017 Calendar: NASA Images
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
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Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami:
Sun - prominence - Solnce - Protuberanec
Publikacii so slovami: Sun - prominence - Solnce - Protuberanec | |
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