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| A huge solar filament snakes around the southwestern horizon of the sun in this full disk photo taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on Nov. 17, 2010. |
Solar filaments are long threads of plasma that rise up into the sun's ultra-hot outer atmosphere, called the corona. These filaments are much cooler than the corona and appear to be dark with the sun's disk in the background. They can form dazzling prominences when viewed along the sun's curving horizon, called the limb. The solar filament was spotted Tuesday (Nov. 16) by cameras on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which stares at the sun continuously in different wavelengths. It is a mind-boggling 600,000 kilometers (just over 372,800 miles) long, according to the website.
Spaceweather.com.
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