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What it is : Towers of plasma ( pink ) erupt from the sun during a totalsolar eclipse
Where it is : About 93 million Admiralty mile ( 150 million kilometers ) above Dallas
Prominences leap out of the sun during the April 8 total solar eclipse.
When it was taken : April 8 , 2024
Why it ’s so special : On April 8 , Earth , the moon andthe sunaligned to grow a rare totalsolar eclipseover North America , dump parts of Mexico , Canada and 15 U.S. states into surreal daytime darkness .
In this surprisingly colourful image , NASAphotographer Keegan Barber captured the scene of totality — the second when the lunar month fully covered the sun ’s bright brass , revealing its elusive KO’d atmosphere — as see over Texas . Behind the smutty magnetic disk of the synodic month , the two outermost layers of the sun ’s atmosphere jab into the wickedness : the white corona and the ruby-red - pinkish chromosphere . Both layers are commonly invisible to the human eye .
Prominences leap out of the sun during the April 8 total solar eclipse.
Related : When is the next full solar occultation after 2024 in North America ?
Manystunning photos of the eclipsehave already been shared , but a field of pink structures pop out of the Dominicus like cherry blossoms sets this persona apart . Despite what some excited eclipse viewers have claimed , those are not solar flares . But they are an equally impressive phenomenon , known as solar swelling — big , often looping tug of plasm that leap out of the Dominicus ’s open and stand drop anchor there for weeks or months at a time , according toNASA . ( Flares , on the other hand , vaporize off into space within seconds . )
— infinite photo of the hebdomad : Hubble catch a ' baseball galax ' with a bleak hole heart—35 jaw - dangle James Webb Space Telescope image
— place exposure of the hebdomad : Battling calamitous holes pull two galaxies apart
The fact that we can see these prominences from nearly 100 million miles ( 160 million km ) away address to their unbelievable size . Many prominences stand taller than our major planet ’s 7,900 - mile ( 12,700 klick ) diam ; some rightfully giant specimens standtaller than eight Earthsstacked atop each other . Their pinkish chromaticity in this exposure comes from the sun ’s hydrogen , which give off a reddish lighting at high temperatures .
prominence showing their face in the afternoon are just one of the many beautiful and elusive phenomena visible during a total solar eclipse . If you did n’t get to go through this one in person , check out our full report of the manystrange things we observed during totality .
