September 13, 2022
The elements that make you — the calcium in your bones, the oxygen in your lungs — were scattered across space by dying stars long before...
A Long Snaking Filament on the Sun
Birthday · September 13, 2022
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APOD published September 13, 2022. Credit: Alan Friedman (Averted Imagination). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
rlier this month, the Sun exhibited one of the longer filaments on record. Visible as the bright curving streak around the image center, the snaking filament's full extent was estimated to be over half of the Sun's radius -- more than 350,000 kilometers long. A filament is composed of hot gas held aloft by the Sun's magnetic field, so that viewed from the side it would appear as a raised prominence. A different, smaller prominence is simultaneously visible at the Sun's edge. The featured image is in false-color and color-inverted to highlight not only the filament but the Sun's carpet chromosphere. The bright dot on the upper right is actually a dark sunspot about the size of the Earth. Solar filaments typically last from hours to days, eventually collapsing to return hot plasma back to the Sun. Sometimes, though, they explode and expel particles into the Solar System, some of which trigger auroras on Earth. The pictured filament appeared in early September and continued to hold steady for about a week.
Image credit: Alan Friedman (Averted Imagination)