Yesterday, on the sun, a mega-filament erupted.
The "mega-filament" described below has just erupted. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory made a must-see movie (above) of the epic blast. The eruption does not appear to be headed toward Earth.
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A magnetic filament snaking around the sun's SE limb just keeps getting longer. The portion visible today stretches more than 700,000 km--a full solar radius. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory took the above picture during the early hours of Dec 6, 2010.
So far the massive structure has hovered quietly above the stellar surface, but now it is showing signs of instability. Long filaments like this one have been known to collapse with explosive results when they hit the stellar surface below. Further updates will be posted as warranted.
NASA
The eruption produced a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) observed by the STEREO-A spacecraft: video. Earth was not in the line of fire; the cloud should sail wide of our planet. Earth-effects might be limited to pretty pictures.
SpaceWeather.com
The mega-filament collapsed in a gorgeous cascade of hot plasma between noon and 2 p.m. EST. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a beautiful movie of the eruption (above). The explosion does not appear to be aimed at Earth, so we shouldn’t expect any magnetic storms or satellite troubles. The loop of hot plasma has been snaking around the sun’s southeast limb since Dec. 4, and appears to be growing by the hour. When SDO saw it on Dec. 4, the filament was more than 250,000 miles long, about 30 times the diameter of the Earth.
Wired
Last month’s solar storm was pretty stellar, but the massive flare that erupted from the sun yesterday put it to shame, lashing out from the solar surface in a beautiful filament that stretched for 435,000 miles – nearly twice the distance between the Earth and moon and about 60,000 miles larger than last month’s plasma ejection.
Popular Science
Fifteen years ago last Tuesday, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory began its two-year mission to observe the sun. Here are some of yesterdays SOHO images: