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:
You can see from this picture that the prominence extends for a considerable distance, and appears to bend.
Thanks for sharing these movies, CuriousTess!