November 20, 1997
Light takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. It took the universe 13.8 billion years to make you.
Escape From The Sun
Birthday · November 20, 1997
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published November 20, 1997. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Twisted magnetic fields arching from the solar surface can trap ionized gas, suspending it in huge looping structures. These majestic plasma arches are seen as prominences above the solar limb. On September 14, this dramatic and detailed image was recorded by the EIT experiment on board the space-based SOHO observatory in the light emitted by ionized Helium. It shows hot plasma escaping into space as a fiery prominence breaks free from magnetic confinement a hundred thousand miles above the Sun. These awesome events bear watching as they can affect communications and power systems ninety three million miles away on Planet Earth.