On April 14th, 2015 an unstable filament of magnetism rose up and erupted from the sun’s eastern limb, stretching itself out almost 700,000 km long.
This image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the first moments of a very high-rising prominence
The magnetic loop shown above quickly exited SDO’s field of view. It kept going … and going… until it stretched itself out almost 700,000 km long. In East Devon, UK, amateur astronomer David Strange was monitoring the sun and witnessed the extraordinary stretch through the eyepiece of a backyard solar telecope. French astrophotographer Sylvain Weiller saw it, too. For comparison, the prominence was half the diameter of the sun and twice as long as the distance between Earth and the Moon. “It went to an unbelievable height,” says Weiller.
Part of the prominence snapped off and formed the core of a bright CME: movie. The expanding cloud billowed away from the sun’s eastern limb, well off the sun-Earth line, and is not expected to hit our planet. Solar flare alerts: text, voice
April 17, 2015 at 7:20 pm
Thank goodness it went that way! It is an amazing Universe.
April 17, 2015 at 7:32 pm
We were spared one more time, but it is amazing the size of the filament! A solar flare of that magnitude with a south polarity and we have a world blackout. Trying to live without electricity even for a few days is a good glimpse of what life could be on earth.
April 17, 2015 at 10:38 pm
Yes, at least I know how to start a fire! That’s something, but yes, wow, our Earth really is floating in the middle of space!