Image: Giant filaments on the face of the sun say "keep right"

Image: Giant filaments on the face of the sun say "keep right"
Credit: NASA/SDO

Is the sun trying to send a message? A pair of giant filaments on the face of the sun have formed what appears to be an enormous arrow pointing to the right. If straightened out, each filament would be about as long as the sun's diameter, 1 million miles long.

Filaments are cooler clouds of solar material suspended above the sun's surface by powerful magnetic forces. Filaments can float for days without much change, though they can also erupt, releasing solar material in a shower that either rains back down or escapes out into space, becoming a moving cloud known as a , or CME.

This image was taken on May 28, 2015, in combined wavelengths of by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which observes the sun 24 hours a day.

Provided by NASA

Citation: Image: Giant filaments on the face of the sun say "keep right" (2015, May 29) retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2015-05-image-giant-filaments-sun.html
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