SOHO Pick of the Week: Arching Eruptive Prominence
A long, arching, solar prominence in extreme ultraviolet light
(ionized helium at 304Å) is seen erupting from the Sun on 9 June
2002. This is certainly one of the largest prominences ever observed
by SOHO. Prominences are huge clouds of relatively cool, dense plasma
suspended in the Sun’s hot, tenuous 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. For a sense of scale, the
prominence extends over approximately 50 Earths from end to end. A
fleeting phenomenon, it had disappeared by the time the next image in
this wavelength was taken about 6 hours later.
SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after
sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of
Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.
If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us
for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send
your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.
