WATCH: Sun puts on spectacular show as gases erupt from surface

TORONTO – The sun put on quite a show for both professional and amateur astronomers at the end of April as a solar prominence reached out into space.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, captured the beautiful dance over six hours on April 21. The prominence extended several times the diameter of the Earth.

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A prominence is also referred to as a filament, which is an eruption of dense ionized gas that erupts from the sun’s surface or chromosphere. The only difference between the two is a filament is seen straight on and appears dark due to the relative brightness of the sun. A prominence erupts on the sun’s limb and appears bright as it is set against the blackness of space. These prominences can last from several minutes to several hours.

The loops seen in this video are called coronal loops, areas that connect magnetic regions on the solar surface.

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