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<p><a
href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/huge-sun-filament/">http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/huge-sun-filament/</a></p>
<p>A magnetic filament more than 50 times the Earth’s width is erupting
off the surface of the sun.</p>
<p>The loop of hot plasma has been <a
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GybRTToxSQI" target="_blank">snaking
around the sun</a>’s southeast limb since Dec. 4, and appears to be
growing by the hour. When NASA’s <a href="http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/"
target="_blank">Solar Dynamics Observatory</a> saw it on Dec. 4, the
filament was more than 250,000 miles long, about 30 times the diameter
of the Earth. In this new image, taken at 9:30 a.m. PST on Dec. 6, the
loop of charged plasma stretches more than 435,000 miles, the full
radius of the sun.</p>
<p style="">So far the gigantic prominence has hung suspended
peacefully above the sun’s surface, but this morning it started showing
signs of instability. Long filaments like this one can break apart as <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection"
target="_blank">coronal mass ejections</a>, releasing tons of hot,
charged material into the inner solar system and potentially causing
magnetic storms on Earth. If the filament collapses in the next day or
so, the results could be spectacular.</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Windows, OSX, or Linux is the same choice as:
McDonald's, Burger King, or a (real) Co-Op.
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