Glowing fiery trench gets carved on Sun: Here's why
What's the story
A massive filament eruption yesterday transformed the northeastern side of the Sun, albeit temporarily. The event was so powerful that it created a glowing trench of hot plasma over 402,335km long. This is almost the distance from Earth to the Moon. The explosive event was captured in stunning detail by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
Aftermath
'Canyon of fire' formed
As the filament unraveled, it left behind what some call a "canyon of fire," with towering walls tipped to rise at least 19,956km high. Such glowing rifts form when the Sun's magnetic field lines violently snap and realign after an eruption. This step leaves behind a searing hot trench of plasma that traces the reshaping magnetic field, according to NASA.
Solar phenomena
What are filaments and CMEs?
Filaments are cool and dense ribbons of solar plasma that can hang suspended above the Sun's surface by magnetic fields. When they become unstable, they can erupt dramatically, sometimes even launching coronal mass ejections (CMEs) into space. These powerful blasts of solar plasma and magnetic fields can trigger geomagnetic storms on Earth. However, this particular filament eruption did release a CME but not in Earth's direction.