User highlight: prominence motions

YouTube and Helioviewer.org user CuriousTess shared two two colour movie of a prominence coming over the solar limb. The first one shows the prominence at the solar limb:

and the second one shows the same feature further onto disk:

These movies show motions in a solar prominence. Prominences are clouds of relatively cool plasma magnetically suspended in the hotter surrounding solar atmosphere. By studying the motions and oscillations in a prominence, we can gain insight into their dynamic structure. A longer term research goal is to understand what makes some prominences unstable and erupt into space, while others don’t.

This image in the AIA 304 channel shows the same prominence:

2013_08_15_11_24_21_AIA_304

You can see from this picture that the prominence extends for a considerable distance, and appears to bend.

Thanks for sharing these movies, CuriousTess!

Written on August 16, 2013 by jack