For those of us living on Earth with no plans of space travel, getting a close look at the unique events on the sun might seem like an impossible dream. However, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is currently in orbit and keeping an eye of our planet's closest star, taking a picture every 12 seconds and giving us an amazing look at its unique solar events. Using a series of images from this mission, NASA has created a video that depicts a circular outburst of a solar filament.
"Filaments are formed in magnetic loops that hold relatively cool, dense gas suspended above the surface of the Sun," said David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "When you look down on top of them they appear dark because the gas inside is cool compared to the hot photosphere below. But when we see a filament in profile against the dark sky it looks like a giant glowing loop - these are called prominences and they can be spectacular."
The filament outburst captured in the images took place over the course of three hours on March 13, and the images were condensed into a video - below - that was posted on Monday to the SDO video channel.
"As one can see, much of the plasma did not have enough oomph behind it to escape the gravitational pull of the sun," NASA wrote in the video description.
The SDO's purpose is to run several experiments that collectively gather measurements that can help scientists better understand how and why the sun varies. Using three tools - the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), EUV Variability Experiment (EVE) and the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI), NASA plans to obtain a large range of measurements that will uncover the nature of the sun's magnetic field, stored energy and the conversion of this energy into solar wind and other variations.
Since 2010, the SDO has captured numerous unique images from the sun. Filaments are of particular interest to scientists due to the fact that they sometimes evolve into massive formations that span the face of the sun. For example, back in 2014 the SDO caught a glimpse of a filament approximately one million miles long.
