Solar Orbiter captures a dramatic solar prominence

By Georgina Torbet February 19, 2022

The sun is a literal hotbed of activity, giving off streams of plasma that can stretch out throughout the solar system and affect both people and satellites here on Earth in a phenomenon called space weather. Sometimes, telescopes can capture footage of these epic events to help understand the sun better.

Solar Orbiter, a mission to study the sun from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), recently took an image of the sun showing a dramatic solar prominence as it happened.

The Full Sun Imager of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on board the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft captured a giant solar eruption on 15 February 2022. — The Full Sun Imager of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager onboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft captured a giant solar eruption on 15 February 2022. Solar Orbiter/EUI Team/ESA & NASA

“Solar prominences are large structures of tangled magnetic field lines that keep dense concentrations of solar plasma suspended above the Sun’s surface, sometimes taking the form of arching loops,” ESA writes. “They are often associated with coronal mass ejections, which, if directed towards Earth, can wreak havoc with our technology and everyday lives.”

Recommended Videos

Solar Orbiter captured one such coronal mass ejection last year, in a video that showed the expulsion of plasma from the sun’s surface.

The latest solar prominence occurred on February 15 and shot out millions of miles from the sun’s surface. The material was not traveling toward Earth, however — it was in fact traveling in the opposite direction, away from the planet. By looking at the data from the side of the sun facing the Solar Orbiter, researchers were able to determine that it must have originated on the other side of the sun.

The image was taken using an instrument on Solar Orbiter called the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, using its Full Sun Imager function. This can capture the full face of the sun even when the spacecraft is up close to it. Most space telescopes that observe the sun need to block out the main face of the sun to observe its corona because the sun is so bright, but Solar Orbiter is able to view events like this while looking at the sun’s whole face.

“Thus, the prominence observed by Solar Orbiter is the largest ever event of its kind to be captured in a single field of view together with the solar disc, opening up new possibilities to see how events like these connect to the solar disc for the first time,” ESA writes.

Topics

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…

Space

There’s a tiny exoplanet orbiting our neighbor, known as Barnard’s star

Artist’s impression of a sub-Earth-mass planet orbiting Barnard’s star

In our local cosmic neighborhood, the nearest star is Proxima Centauri, which is part of the three-star Alpha Centauri system and known to host exoplanets of its own. But just a little further away is a single star on its own, known as Barnard's star. Recently, astronomers discovered that this star also hosts at least one exoplanet, and could host as many as four.

At just six light-years from Earth, Barnard's star is close by and has long been of interest to researchers searching for nearby exoplanets. But as a small, dim type of star called a red dwarf, no one has discovered an exoplanet here before -- though there were hints found in 2018 that such a planet might exist.

Space

Polaris Dawn crew member describes the dramatic ride home

Crew Dragon Endeavour shortly before splashdown.

A crew member of SpaceX’s recent Polaris Dawn mission has described what it was like aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft as it entered Earth’s atmosphere and hurtled toward Earth during the crew's high-speed homecoming last weekend.

Polaris Dawn’s Scott Poteet was responding to a stunning photo captured from the International Space Station (ISS) by NASA astronaut Don Pettit, which showed the Crew Dragon during its rapid descent at the end of a historic five-day mission that involved the first privately funded spacewalk.

Space

Polaris Dawn’s high-speed journey home captured in photo from ISS

An illustration of how the Polaris Dawn spacewalk will look.

A remarkable photo taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) shows SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Crew Dragon capsule entering Earth’s atmosphere at high speed as it returned home with four crew members on board early on Sunday morning.

Close examination of the image (top), which was captured by recent ISS arrival Don Pettit, shows a streak of light and the Crew Dragon, with some city lights visible in the background. The five-day Polaris Dawn mission carried four non-professional astronauts and performed the first-ever privately funded spacewalk while also taking humans to the furthest point from Earth since the Apollo missions five decades ago.