Over a 30-hour period (July 31 - August 1, 2004) SOHO observed a huge filament (a prominence seen against the surface of the Sun) that had been hovering for over a week above the Sun's surface finally burst away in an arching cloud. The extreme ultraviolet imager that captured the process took these images at the rate of one image very six hours so that the developing eruption can only be seen in a stop-motion series of images. What was unusual in this series is that the process as viewed in this wavelength was visible over many hours. Often a prominence will appear out of nowhere in one image and be gone six hours later when the next image is taken.

Previous Picks of the Week

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.