Evolving Prominence

A small prominence hovered above the sun's surface over a two-day period (June 12-14, 2018) before breaking off into space. Prominences are cooler, darker clouds of plasma tethered above the sun by magnetic forces. These clouds of gases are notoriously unstable. The images were taken in the 304 Angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light.

Movies
PIA22537_prom_evolve304_big.mp4
PIA22537_prom_evolve304_sm.mp4

SDO is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Its Atmosphere Imaging Assembly was built by the Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), Palo Alto, California.