                        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
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2022 June 24

                        Filaprom on the Western Limb
                    Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Wise

   Explanation: A solar filament is an enormous stream of incandescent
   plasma suspended above the active surface of the Sun by looping
   magnetic fields. Seen against the solar disk it looks dark only because
   it's a little cooler, and so slightly dimmer, than the solar
   photosphere. Suspended above the solar limb the same structure looks
   bright when viewed against the blackness of space and is called a solar
   prominence. A filaprom would be both of course, a stream of magnetized
   plasma that crosses in front of the solar disk and extends beyond the
   Sun's edge. In this hydrogen-alpha close-up of the Sun captured on June
   22, active region AR3038 is near the center of the frame. Active region
   AR3032 is seen at the far right, close to the Sun's western limb. As
   AR3032 is carried by rotation toward the Sun's visible edge, what was
   once a giant filament above it is now partly seen as a prominence, How
   big is AR3032's filaprom? For scale planet Earth is shown near the top
   right corner.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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