Huge Eruptive Prominence (April 16, 2010)

Hi-res TIF image (2.2M)

Quicktime Movie: Large (1.3M), Small (595K)
MPEG Movie (3.1M)

The largest eruptive prominence observed in years blasted into space (April 13, 2010) and SOHO was lucky enough to have caught a key moment of it. As observed in extreme UV light, the plasma cloud was caught about mid-step in its liftoff above the Sun's surface. (Ground-based observers says the eruption took about two hours.) It was not obvious what triggered the breakaway, but it may have been associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME).

Hi-res TIF image (6.4M)

Prominences are cooler clouds of gases that hover above the Sun, tethered there by magnetic forces. Occasionally, as seen here, they break free and blast into space.

The bright edge of the expanding cloud is distinctly displayed in the LASCO C2 field of view in which the Sun (represented by the white circle) is blocked by a central disk. The video clip shows it dispersing over about an eight hours. The expanding prominence is the bright stuff in the position of the "filament" of the broader and fainter CME "light bulb."

SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.

If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.