APOD: A Huge Solar Filament Erupts (2016 Jul 31)

APOD Robot · Post by **APOD Robot** » Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:06 am

A Huge Solar Filament Erupts

Explanation: Filaments sometimes explode off the Sun. Featured, a huge filament had been seen hovering over the Sun's surface for over a week before it erupted late in 2010. The image sequence was taken by the Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in one color of ultraviolet light. The explosion created a Coronal Mass Ejection that dispersed high energy plasma into the Solar System. This plasma cloud, though, missed the Earth and so did not cause auroras. The featured eruption depicted how widely separated areas of the Sun can sometimes act in unison. Explosions like this will likely become less common over the next few years as our Sun goes through a Solar Minimum in its surface magnetic activity.

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heehaw · Post by **heehaw** » Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:08 am

When you see that matter RISING from the "surface" of the Sun, think of it as a rocket launch: how hard must it be to do? Well, if the Earth's surface gravity is 1.0 g, then that at Mars is 0.38 g, at Jupiter is 2.5 g, and at the surface of the Sun is .... 28 g. The Sun must have some NASA, to launch those jets!

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:04 am

heehaw wrote:
When you see that matter RISING from the "surface" of the Sun, think of it as a rocket launch: how hard must it be to do? Well, if the Earth's surface gravity is 1.0 g, then that at Mars is 0.38 g, at Jupiter is 2.5 g, and at the surface of the Sun is .... 28 g. The Sun must have some NASA, to launch those jets!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_reconnection wrote:
[b][color=#0000FF]Magnetic Reconnection: This view is a cross-section through four magnetic domains undergoing separator reconnection. Field lines (and associated plasma) flow inward from above and below the separator, reconnect, and spring outward horizontally. This process is not well understood: once started, it proceeds many orders of magnitude faster than predicted by standard models.[/color][/b]
<<Magnetic reconnection is a physical process in highly conducting plasmas in which the magnetic topology is rearranged and magnetic energy is converted to kinetic energy, thermal energy, and particle acceleration. The qualitative description of the reconnection process is such that magnetic field lines from different magnetic domains (defined by the field line connectivity) are spliced to one another, changing their patterns of connectivity with respect to the sources. It is a violation of an approximate conservation law in plasma physics, called the Alfvén's Theorem, and can concentrate mechanical or magnetic energy in both space and time. Solar flares, the largest explosions in the Solar System, may involve the reconnection of large systems of magnetic flux on the Sun, releasing, in minutes, energy that has been stored in the magnetic field over a period of hours to days. Magnetic reconnection in Earth's magnetosphere is one of the mechanisms responsible for the aurora, and it is important to the science of controlled nuclear fusion because it is one mechanism preventing magnetic confinement of the fusion fuel.>>

Ann · Post by **Ann** » Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:08 am

heehaw wrote:When you see that matter RISING from the "surface" of the Sun, think of it as a rocket launch: how hard must it be to do? Well, if the Earth's surface gravity is 1.0 g, then that at Mars is 0.38 g, at Jupiter is 2.5 g, and at the surface of the Sun is .... 28 g. The Sun must have some NASA, to launch those jets!

I'm sadly uninterested in the Sun, but I think, in my amateur way, of the Sun as a sort of pressure cooker. I'm thinking that the core of the Sun is providing the heat by fusing away at 15 million K, and the solar convective core is functioning as a sort of "lid"... until something really powerful breaks through and starts prominencing.

The NASA of the Sun is in its darkest depths, were no daylight exists, or so I think anyway. Solar fusion produces helium and gamma rays, not optical light that we could, in theory, see, if we could somehow plunge our heads into the center of the Sun and peek around in there. Better put on some sunscreen as we admire that Sun's NASA fusion engine.

EDIT: I can see that Art just provided the correct scientific explanation. Thanks, Art!

Ann

Boomer12k · Post by **Boomer12k** » Sun Jul 31, 2016 3:53 pm

Awesome display....

:---[===] *

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Sun Jul 31, 2016 11:00 pm

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 4:07 am

neufer wrote:

Is that a caricature of a solar prominence or a caricature of a Donald Trump comb over erupting into something caused by twisted by internal mechanisms???

Mistral · Post by **Mistral** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 10:21 am

Hello,
Do you have an idea of the actual duration of this movie ?

Starship Asterisk*

APOD: A Huge Solar Filament Erupts (2016 Jul 31)

APOD: A Huge Solar Filament Erupts (2016 Jul 31)

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