SOHO Pick of the Week: 23 Oct 2001: Huge Eruptive Prominence

A solar prominence in extreme ultraviolet light (He II at 304Å)
breaks away from the Sun. Prominences are huge clouds of relatively
cool, dense plasma suspended in the Sun’s hot, thin corona. Magnetic
fields built up enormous forces that propelled particles out beyond
the Sun’s surface. Emission in this spectral line shows the upper
chromosphere at a temperature of about 60,000 degrees K. To give a
sense of scale, the prominence extends about 30 Earths out from the
Sun.