Weekend sun
The weekend began with a blank, quiet sun--then a spectacular cloud of glowing hydrogen rose over the sun's eastern limb. "It was one of the most beautiful prominences we've had in a while," says Greg Piepol who took this picture yesterday from his backyard in Rockville, Maryland:
The surging prominence reminded photographer Gary Palmer of a giant tsunami, big enough to swallow our entire planet. Observing from a mountaintop near Los Angeles, he created a must-see movie of the wave in action: click here (7MB).
The prominence is dispersing today, but others are popping up around the sun. If you have a solar telescope, take a look.
