The Great Wall of Plasma

The Great Wall of Plasma

Amateur astronomers around the world are monitoring a spectacular prominence emerging over the sun's eastern limb. Sergio Castillo of Corona, CA, calls it "the Great Wall of Plasma," and here's why: The vast structure is more than 6x taller and 30x wider than Earth. In other words, it could swallow our entire planet more than 180 times. Bill Hrudey sends this picture from the Cayman Islands:

"It's a solar imager's delight," says Hrudey.
This is a type of prominence commonly called a "hedgerow prominence." Hot glowing plasma inside the structure is held aloft by quasi-stable solar magnetic fields. NASA and Japanese space telescopes have taken high resolution images of of similar prominences and seen some amazing things such as (1) tadpole-shaped plumes that float up from the base of the prominence; (2) narrow streams of plasma that descend from the top like waterfalls; and (3) swirls and vortices that resemble van Gogh's Starry Night.

From SpaceWeather.com