SOHO Pick of the Week: Filament Eruption Observed
The two stills and an animation taken in extreme ultraviolet light on
2002 April 27 show the eruption of a long filament above the Sun’s
surface. Filaments are twisting masses of cooler (“only” 10,000 –
100,000 degrees Kelvin) gas contained by magnetic fields above the
Sun’s surface in the midst of the much hotter (~ 1,500,000 K) corona.
(Filaments are called prominences if observed on the Sun’s limb or
edge.) In a matter of six hours the filament explodes and virtually
disappears, much of it blown out into space. With its EIT telescope
taking images every 12 minutes, SOHO was able to clearly capture a
the eruption of a filament over 700,000 km long.
Higher resolution version (TIF, 2.6M)
The event was associated with a strong coronal mass ejection that was
seen a few hours later in this LASCO C2 image as a large expanding
cloud of particles.
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.
