We were I hope something like that happens. Yesterday, for a brief moment, the Sun waved at us from a distance, telling us that it is in the midst of a vibrant and dynamic phase of its 11-year cycle, when solar flares and other phenomena are at their peak and are more likely to occur.
No, they weren’t Baily’s pearls, those specks of light peeking through the moon’s jagged edges. Nor was it the diamond ring phase of the solar eclipse, where the sun appears as a bright flash immediately before and after the moon completely covers it. It wasn’t a solar flare either, but rather a sudden and intense burst of electromagnetic radiation from the sun’s surface.
Rather, it was a solar prominence – a reddish or pinkish structure extending from the edge of the sun’s disk. Protrusions can vary in size and shape, ranging from small, discrete loops to large, complex structures that extend across significant portions of the Sun’s limb. Prominences are not technically classified as solar flares, but both occur more frequently during the Sun’s solar maximum phase.
During total solar eclipses, astronomers eagerly await the opportunity to directly observe and study the Sun’s corona (or outer atmosphere) because the Moon’s shadow obscures the Sun’s bright surface, eliminating the need for special equipment or space-based observatories. However, totality also offers eclipse observers the opportunity to view these star features with their own eyes.
If you were lucky enough to observe yesterday’s solar eclipse from the perspective of totality, you probably saw these protrusions, including a particularly bright red spot at the sun’s lower region, in addition to smaller beads that appeared on its left and right sides. Astrophotographers managed to make the protrusion visible and reveal its loop-like structure. However, to observers on the ground, these features appeared as unusually bright red dots along the perimeter.
Unlike solar flares, prominences in the photosphere are anchored to the Sun’s surface and extend outward into the corona. In contrast, solar flares, driven by intense magnetic activity, break away from the star’s surface. The formation of projections, also called filaments, takes about a day and can last for several months. They are also huge, traveling hundreds of thousands of miles into space.
The glowing red loops visible at solar prominences are made of plasma consisting of electrically charged hydrogen and helium. after to NASA. “The prominence plasma flows along a tangled and twisted structure of magnetic fields generated by the Sun’s internal dynamo,” the space agency explains. “An erupting protuberance occurs when such a structure becomes unstable and bursts outward, releasing the plasma.”
So if you were lucky enough to see these tiny red dots, you were literally witnessing a stellar eruption. Unreal.
More: Photos: Great North American Solar Eclipse