From Ben Ritchey@1:393/68 to All on Sunday, September 16, 2018 08:37:46
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
professional astronomer.
2018 September 16
[2]
A Solar Filament Erupts
Image Credit: NASA [3] 's GSFC [4] , SDO AIA Team [5]
Explanation: What's happened to our Sun? Nothing very unusual -- it just threw a filament [6] . Toward the middle of 2012, a long standing solar filament [7] suddenly erupted into space producing an energetic Coronal Mass Ejection
(CME). The filament [8] had been held up for days by the Sun's ever changing magnetic field [9] and the timing of the eruption was unexpected. Watched closely [10] by the Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, the resulting explosion [11] shot [12] electrons and ions into the Solar System, some of which arrived at Earth three days later and impacted Earth's magnetosphere
[13] , causing visible aurorae [14] . Loops of plasma surrounding an active region [15] can be seen above the erupting filament in the featured [16] ultraviolet [17] image. Although the Sun is now in a relatively inactive [18]
state of its 11-year cycle [19] , unexpected holes [20] have opened in the Sun's corona [21] allowing an excess of charged particles [22] to stream into space. As before, these charged particles are creating auroras [23] .