On July 15, a colossal filament erupted from the solar’s northeastern limb, dramatically reshaping a part of our star’s floor, albeit briefly, and unleashing a coronal mass ejection (CME) into house.
The outburst was so highly effective that it carved a glowing trench of sizzling plasma greater than 250,000 miles (about 400,000 kilometers) lengthy, roughly the gap from Earth to the moon.
The explosive occasion was captured in gorgeous element by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), exhibiting the filament unraveling as photo voltaic materials arcs and cascades by way of the sun’s atmosphere. Because the filament collapsed, it left behind what some name a “canyon of fireplace,” with towering partitions estimated to rise at the least 12,400 miles (20,000 km) excessive, in response to Spaceweather.com
These glowing rifts type when the solar’s magnetic area strains violently snap and realign after an eruption, abandoning a searing sizzling trench of plasma that traces the reshaping magnetic area, according to NASA.
This fiery chasm is not only a visible spectacle. Filaments are cooler, dense ribbons of photo voltaic plasma that may hold suspended above the sun‘s floor by magnetic fields, according to NOAA. When these change into unstable, they will erupt dramatically, generally launching coronal mass ejections (CMEs) into house — highly effective blasts of photo voltaic plasma and magnetic fields that may set off geomagnetic storms right here on Earth.
Coronagraph imagery from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and GOES-19 satellite tv for pc means that whereas the filament eruption did launch a CME, there isn’t a Earth-directed element.
“The CME is heading away from Earth,” aurora chaser Vincent Ledvina wrote in a post on X. “Right here is the CME in LASCO C2 (left) and CCOR-1 (proper) which has a later body of the CME additional unfold out. The entrance is touring fairly slowly and away from Earth.”
Right here is the CME in LASCO C2 (left) and CCOR-1 (proper) which has a later body of the CME additional unfold out. The entrance is touring fairly slowly and away from Earth. pic.twitter.com/ljWWmThpGQJuly 15, 2025
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