{"id":10464,"date":"2018-10-10T14:30:45","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T18:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/2018\/10\/10\/sun-dance\/"},"modified":"2019-03-12T00:48:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T04:48:44","slug":"sun-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/?p=10464","title":{"rendered":"Sun Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google+ reshared post<\/b><\/p>\n

Sun Dance<\/b>
\nVideo Credit: +<\/span>NASA<\/a><\/span>, SDO; Processing: Alan Watson via Helioviewer
\nhttps:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap181010.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes, the surface of our Sun seems to dance. In the middle of 2012, for example, NASA’s Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressive prominence that seemed to perform a running dive roll like an acrobatic dancer. The dramatic explosion was captured in ultraviolet light in the featured time-lapse video covering about three hours. A looping magnetic field directed the flow of hot plasma on the Sun. The scale of the dancing prominence is huge — the entire Earth would easily fit under the flowing arch of hot gas. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month, and may erupt in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) expelling hot gas into the Solar System. The energy mechanism that creates a solar prominence is still a topic of research. Unlike 2012, this year the Sun’s surface is significantly more serene, featuring fewer spinning prominences, as it is near the minimum in its 11-year magnetic cycle.
\n2018 October 10<\/p><\/blockquote>\n