| Jul 23, 2012 |
The Sun has a great idea
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(Nanowerk News) A light bulb-shaped eruption leaps from the Sun and blasts into space in this archival image from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO.
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SOHO captured the scene on 27 February 2000, watching as a large filament rose from the Sun’s broiling atmosphere and evolved into the coronal mass ejection loop seen here.
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| The Sun’s great idea.
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A coronal mass ejection – or CME – is a huge cloud of magnetised plasma ejected from the Sun’s atmosphere – the corona – and launched into interplanetary space. They comprise millions of tonnes of gas and race away from the Sun at hundreds of kilometres per second.
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If a powerful CME is aimed in Earth’s direction then the resulting geomagnetic storm may trigger regional power outages and communications blackouts.
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But CMEs also have an appealing side: interactions with Earth’s magnetic field ignite auroras over the northern or southern poles, producing spectacular natural light displays that dance across the night sky in shades of red and green.
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This particular CME shows three distinctive features as it leaps from the Sun. A bright loop of plasma leads the way with a dark, low-density cavity behind it. The light bulb ‘filament’ – a bright orb of solar plasma – follows behind and dominates the centre of feature.
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