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"Filaments are formed in magnetic loops that hold relatively cool, dense gas suspended above the surface of the Sun," explains 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."
Filaments last for a few weeks or months. The gas in a filament will eventually move to a different layer in the Sun and will no longer be visible in an image of the chromosphere. But at the same time, other gas may move into the chromosphere and create a new filament someplace else. The birth and death of filaments is a mystery and the subject of ongoing study by solar scientists.
Can anyone out there verify this?
MAGNIFICENT ERUPTION: Breaking the quiet in spectacular fashion, a magnetic filament erupted from the sun's northern hemisphere during the late hours of Sept. 29th: movie. The explosion hurled a magnificent CME into space, and it might have an Earth-directed component. Stay tuned for updates as more data from this event are analyzed.
talklikeapirat
reply to post by Starwise
Can anyone out there verify this?
Verified. According to Space Weather ...
MAGNIFICENT ERUPTION: Breaking the quiet in spectacular fashion, a magnetic filament erupted from the sun's northern hemisphere during the late hours of Sept. 29th: movie. The explosion hurled a magnificent CME into space, and it might have an Earth-directed component. Stay tuned for updates as more data from this event are analyzed.
Solar Soft
MAGNIFICENT ERUPTION: Breaking the quiet in spectacular fashion, a magnetic filament erupted from the sun's northern hemisphere during the late hours of Sept. 29th: movie. The explosion hurled a magnificent CME into space, and it might have an Earth-directed component. Stay tuned for updates as more data from this event are analyzed.
antar
So will this affect us here on earth?
How long does it take a CME to reach the Earth? The average distance from the Sun to the Earth is 150 million kilometers which can be written as 150 x 10^6 Km. CME's can vary in speed. They can range from 200 km/s to 1000 km/s, although typically, most of them travel at about 424 km/s (Avg 1996-1998 speed St. Cyr et al., 2000). Assuming that CME's don't accelerate or decelerate on their way from the Sun to the Earth, we can easily compute from the numbers given, the minimum travel time, the maximum travel time, as well as the average travel time. time=distance/speed So, the average time it would take a CME to get to the Earth is 98 hrs. At 1000 km/s, a CME would take 42 hrs, and at 200 km/s, a CME would take 208 hrs.
A filament eruption and associated low-level solar flare (below R1 - Minor) occurred late Sunday afternoon, Sep 29th, (start of day Sep 30th UTC) producing a S2 (Moderate) solar radiation storm which remains in progress at this time. The filament eruption resulted in a coronal mass ejection (CME) that appears to be partially Earth-directed, with the potential to cause minor to moderate geomagnetic storming later this week. Further analysis of the event is in progress to determine a possible arrival time, intensity, and duration.