Starship Asterisk*

Coronal Rain on the Sun

Explanation: Does it rain on the Sun? Yes, although what falls is not water but extremely hot plasma. An example occurred in mid-July 2012 after an eruption on the Sun that produced both a Coronal Mass Ejection and a moderate solar flare. What was more unusual, however, was what happened next. Plasma in the nearby solar corona was imaged cooling and falling back, a phenomenon known as coronal rain. Because they are electrically charged, electrons, protons, and ions in the rain were gracefully channeled along existing magnetic loops near the Sun's surface, making the scene appear as a surreal three-dimensional sourceless waterfall. The resulting surprisingly-serene spectacle is shown in ultraviolet light and highlights matter glowing at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. Each second in the above time lapse video takes about 6 minutes in real time, so that the entire coronal rain sequence lasted about 10 hours.

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bystander wrote: http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=30773

What he said, but the next post down.

Thanks for adding that last line with the time-scale! I've often wondered how long such events lasted.

Ahhh! A soothing hot shower; guaranteed to take all the kinks out;- - -and than some!

oooooo, Ring of Fire!

"Love is a burning thing
and it makes a firery ring
bound by wild desire
I fell in to a ring of fire..."

Johnny Cash...Ring of Fire, I saw the movie I think with my mother in the early 60's...been looking for it. I guess it has Frank Gorshin, and David Janssen and was shot here in Oregon.

:---[===] *

Boomer12k wrote:Johnny Cash...Ring of Fire...

I've never heard that song the same way since I learned that Preparation-H tried (unsuccessfully) to license it for use in their commercials.

Watched this over and over, amazing!

Chris Peterson wrote:

Boomer12k wrote:Johnny Cash...Ring of Fire...

I've never heard that song the same way since I learned that Preparation-H tried (unsuccessfully) to license it for use in their commercials.

Kim Stanley Robinson, 2312

The sunwalkers know the time, so they wait and watch - until -
a flick of orange fire dolphins over the horizon
and their blood leaps inside them. More brief banners follow, flicking up, arcing in loops, breaking off and floating free in the sky. Star oh star, about to break on them!

By coincidence, I have just started this book.
Margarita

This is a beautiful and interesting video. SDO is an eye candy factory!

Would this solar rain shower appear as a prominence in Hydrogen alpha light? Or is it visible only in the ultraviolet?

Anthony Barreiro wrote:
This is a beautiful and interesting video. SDO is an eye candy factory!

Would this solar rain shower appear as a prominence in Hydrogen alpha light? Or is it visible only in the ultraviolet?

Perhaps, nothing to write home about.

neufer wrote:

Anthony Barreiro wrote:
This is a beautiful and interesting video. SDO is an eye candy factory!

Would this solar rain shower appear as a prominence in Hydrogen alpha light? Or is it visible only in the ultraviolet?

Perhaps, nothing to write home about.

ET write home!

One advantage of hydrogen alpha light is that we can actually see it through a small, relatively inexpensive, Earth-based telescope.

Amazing image. I am curious that try as I may to see material traveling UP the loops, all I can see it the highlighted material "raining" down to the solar surface. Can anyone explain this?

Thanks--

quigley wrote:
Amazing image. I am curious that try as I may to see material traveling UP the loops, all I can see is the highlighted material "raining" down to the solar surface. Can anyone explain this?

Now that you mention it...that's also true of rain & snow here on Earth. Try as I may to see material traveling UP, all I can see is clouds miraculously forming out of nowhere and then precipitation "raining" down onto the earth.

There must be some sort of trickster god at work.

Can someone explain the beam-like event/artefact (to the right of the flare), lasting from ~ 0:41 to 0:51?

neufer wrote:

quigley wrote:
Amazing image. I am curious that try as I may to see material traveling UP the loops, all I can see is the highlighted material "raining" down to the solar surface. Can anyone explain this?

Now that you mention it...that's also true of rain & snow here on Earth. Try as I may to see material traveling UP, all I can see is clouds miraculously forming out of nowhere and then precipitation "raining" down onto the earth.

Not really true. You can often see material (clouds) go up before rain comes down. You just have to watch for several minutes.
This time lapse video illustrates that: The question quigley had was a good one. I see a bit of upward motion in the solar time lapse video, but not much.