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A large solar flare occurred
on 10 September 2017 at
the edge of the Sun, and this movie shows the spectacular eruption that
came from the flare. The images show plasma at a temperature of about
10 million
degrees, and the flare is the extremely bright feature just above the
edge of the Sun. The loop-like structure being ejected is referred to
as a magnetic flux rope. The thin, straight line behind it is a current
sheet (viewed edge on). Both features are as expected from the standard
model of solar eruptive events, and this is a particularly nice
example.
Images are from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly of
NASA's
Solar Dynamics Observatory. The sequence lasts 10 minutes (see time in
bottom-right corner). I've rotated the images by 90 degrees
counter-clockwise. The flickering of the bright flare is due to the
camera taking alternating short and long exposures.
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