                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
     fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation w
                    ritten by a professional astronomer.

                               2021 November 8

                        A Filament Leaps from the Sun
                  Video Credit & Copyright: Stphane Poirier

   Explanation: Why, sometimes, does part of the Sun's atmosphere leap
   into space? The reason lies in changing magnetic fields that thread
   through the Sun's surface. Regions of strong surface magnetism, known
   as active regions, are usually marked by dark sunspots. Active regions
   can channel charged gas along arching or sweeping magnetic fields --
   gas that sometimes falls back, sometimes escapes, and sometimes not
   only escapes but impacts our Earth. The featured one-hour time-lapse
   video -- taken with a small telescope in France -- captured an eruptive
   filament that appeared to leap off the Sun late last month. The
   filament is huge: for comparison, the size of the Earth is shown on the
   upper left. Just after the filament lifted off, the Sun emitted a
   powerful X-class flare while the surface rumbled with a tremendous
   solar tsunami. A result was a cloud of charged particles that rushed
   into our Solar System but mostly missed our Earth -- this time.
   However, enough solar plasma did impact our Earth's magnetosphere to
   create a few faint auroras.

                       Tomorrow's picture: fake apods
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

