Starship Asterisk*

A Solar Prominence from SOHO

Explanation: How can gas float above the Sun? Twisted magnetic fields arching from the solar surface can trap ionized gas, suspending it in huge looping structures. These majestic plasma arches are seen as prominences above the solar limb. In 1999, this dramatic and detailed image was recorded by the Extreme ultraviolet Image Telescope (EIT) on board the space-based SOHO observatory in the light emitted by ionized Helium. It shows hot plasma escaping into space as a fiery prominence breaks free from magnetic confinement a hundred thousand kilometers above the Sun. These awesome events bear watching as they can affect communications and power systems over 100 million kilometers away on planet Earth. In late 2020 our Sun passed the solar minimum of its 11-year cycle and is now showing increased surface activity.

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Today's (1/30/22) beautiful shot of the enormous solar prominence from 1999 poses my question: how long is such an individual event visible... how long does it last?

Must say this picture bears a strong resemblance to “Adult Swim’s”…



Eric

To the powers that be, you are not showing the picture in the comments, nor are the comments showing up in the page linked to by the “discuss” button and it’s also titled a “sloar” prominence in the title of the comments.
Other than that, no problems! (It’s all good in the hood, no biggie! )

The Sun's NASA is a heck of a lot better than OUR NASA. Our NASA launches against 1 g. The Sun's NASA launches against 28 g. It uses magnetic fields to do it. But its average magnetic field is, as I recall, about 1 gauss compared to our 1/2 gauss. So how does it do it? It gathers magnetic field (sunspots etc) and wham! And it sometimes hurls huge blobs of gas out into the solar system. On rare occasions such a blob hits Earth, and causes consternation. (That's ALL we'd need on top of Covid, right?)

XgeoX wrote: ↑Sun Jan 30, 2022 11:42 am To the powers that be, you are not showing the picture in the comments, nor are the comments showing up in the page linked to by the “discuss” button and it’s also titled a “sloar” prominence in the title of the comments.
Other than that, no problems! (It’s all good in the hood, no biggie! )

Maybe if you had went to the proper discussion page instead of one created by some newb who doesn't know how to use the <Discuss> link on APOD. If the thread isn't created by the APOD Robot (auto generated), it's not official.

Solar flares are verv huge! I don't wanna walk on this carpet!
Interesting that the sun goes into a 11 year cycle!
Does this show the stability of the Sun?

Orin Stephanek wrote, Interesting that the sun goes into a 11 year cycle!
Does this show the stability of the Sun?

I suppose so. I would think though that a greater showing of stability of the Sun is that it has been around for some 4 billion years and in all that time it has remained stable enough to allow very temperature sensitive life forms (that can only exist in a narrow temperature range of some 150 degrees F.) to evolve and survive on planet Earth in the Goldilocks zone.

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Sun Jan 30, 2022 4:00 pm Interesting that the sun goes into a 11 year cycle!
Does this show the stability of the Sun?⁉️

If you're really looking at the underlying theory (including its relevance to solar stability) you need to consider that it's actually a 22 year cycle. The 11-year cycle is actually a half cycle, as the Sun's magnetic polarity reverses every 11 years. The so-called 11-year cycle refers to the magnitude of activity and ignores the polarity.

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sun Jan 30, 2022 5:42 pm

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Sun Jan 30, 2022 4:00 pm
Interesting that the sun goes into a 11 year cycle!
Does this show the stability of the Sun?

If you're really looking at the underlying theory (including its relevance to solar stability) you need to consider that it's actually a 22 year cycle. The 11-year cycle is actually a half cycle, as the Sun's magnetic polarity reverses every 11 years. The so-called 11-year cycle refers to the magnitude of activity and ignores the polarity.

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bad-astr ... -ice-cores

Thanks Chris and Art!

bystander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 30, 2022 3:22 pm

XgeoX wrote: ↑Sun Jan 30, 2022 11:42 am To the powers that be, you are not showing the picture in the comments, nor are the comments showing up in the page linked to by the “discuss” button and it’s also titled a “sloar” prominence in the title of the comments.
Other than that, no problems! (It’s all good in the hood, no biggie! )

Maybe if you had went to the proper discussion page instead of one created by some newb who doesn't know how to use the <Discuss> link on APOD. If the thread isn't created by the APOD Robot (auto generated), it's not official.

I went to the one linked to on the official page. If It’s that’s not official oh well…
You might want to follow Mr. Keillor’s advice!

Eric

lrgmbr1151 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 30, 2022 5:52 am Today's (1/30/22) beautiful shot of the enormous solar prominence from 1999 poses my question: how long is such an individual event visible... how long does it last?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_prominence
Prominences form over timescales of about a day and may persist in the corona for several weeks or months, looping hundreds of thousands of kilometers into space.