PICK OF THE WEEK
Pick of The Week
Filament Eruption Observed (April 26, 2002)
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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.
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. |
