The Sun is heading towards
solar maximum likely in February 2013. Related to this, a massive
solar prominence erupted from the Sun at the end of August 2012. (NB: the Sun's "prominences" and "filaments" are the same thing: a cool loop of gas held in place by the sun's magnetic field. viewed straight-on, with the Sun as the background, they look black since the body of the sun is much hotter; viewed from the side, on the edge of the sun with space on the background, they glow yellow orange. The eruption of a solar prominence/filament is one major type of
coronal mass ejection, the other being a
solar flare, a typically hot ejection arising from a solar storm.) Here, just because it is cool, is a short
video of another solar filament erupting in December 2010. And, no, these do not spell doom for the Earth.
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