IRIS Movie of the Day
At least once a week a movie of the Sun taken by NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is posted by one of the scientists operating the instrument.
Sudden activation and rebuilding of a quiescent prominence
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Arkadiusz Berlicki
On March 28, 2019 a quiescent prominence was observed at eastern limb. Prominences consist of much denser, but also much cooler (7-10 thousands degrees K) plasma, than in the surrounding solar corona. Therefore, they are well visible in some UV and optical spectral lines. In case of this prominence, from around 07:50 UT we can observe sudden rebuilding of its structure associated with increasing plasma flows. Since the prominences are supported by the magnetic field, such dynamic reconfiguration can be caused by changes in its magnetic field topology initiated e.g. by the photospheric-driven motion of its footpoints, by influence of neighbouring magnetic field structures or by some disturbances propagating in the corona.