A Solar Prominence from SOHO (2009 May 31)

[astrolabe]

Hello All,

I was wondering if solar prominences can be detected visually or otherwise when they are oriented in our direction or can they only be seen exiting or above the Sun's limb generally at the edge.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090531.html

[neufer]

Hello All,

I was wondering if solar prominences can be detected visually or otherwise when they are oriented in our direction or can they only be seen exiting or above the Sun's limb generally at the edge.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090531.html

You should be able to detect, at least, one visually oriented in our direction in today's APOD.

If a prominence occurs on the disc of the sun it appears darker than its background (due to the lower temperature of the plasma). These are referred to as solar filaments.

[astrolabe]

Hello neufer,

Thanks for your reply and if that is indeed the case then a prominence of some size appeared to span across several longitudinal meridians ( is that a redundancy? probably!)- NW to SE at around the latitude 45degrees North.

[Frenchy]

Anyone know what the small spherical shadow just a little left of the end of the prominence is?

[Chris Peterson]

Anyone know what the small spherical shadow just a little left of the end of the prominence is?

Looks like a dust shadow. There's no evidence that the image has been calibrated with either darks or flats.

[DavidLeodis]

Despite having seen very many similar images I'm still awestruck at them. That our Sun (which is only a very minor star in cosmic terms) has been burning its contents away for several billion years and should do for several billion more yet is truly amazing. Nature sure is wonderful. It's going to be very dark and cold around where Earth was when the light finally goes out!

[Chris Peterson]

Despite having seen very many similar images I'm still awestruck at them. That our Sun (which is only a very minor star in cosmic terms) has been burning its contents away for several billion years and should do for several billion more yet is truly amazing. Nature sure is wonderful. It's going to be very dark and cold around where Earth was when the light finally goes out!

Will the lights go out if there is nobody to see them? <g>

Just to quibble a bit with semantics, I wouldn't call the Sun a "minor star". It is actually very typical.

[kakala]

A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held above the Sun’s surface by the Sun’s magnetic field. In 2004, NASA’s Sun-orbiting SOHO spacecraft imaged an impressively large prominence hovering over the surface, pictured above. The Earth would easily fit under the hovering curtain of hot gas.