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Quiet Sun Filament Unraveling
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Filaments and cavities, which are observational consequences of solar magnetic fields, often formed together at high latitudes. These solar features are a sign of a stable magnetic field configuration in the solar corona. However, the sun is dynamic and even these stable features come to an end. Here we see the eruption of a filament/cavity system in X-rays with the Earth for scale left of the eruption. A concurrent SDO/AIA Extreme Ultraviolet observation shows the filament unraveling during the eruption. While we do not see the filament directly in X-ray observations, the X-ray observations contain indirect evidence of a filament and cavity eruption. First, you may see the bright X-ray loops just off of the sun contracting towards the solar surface, which indicates a cavity erupted. You may also see brightenings occurring on the sun when the bright loops start contracting. This is likely a filament activation, which indicates something energetic occurred along the filament. Keywords: Filament, Field Line Shrinkage Filters: Al-poly, Open |
(Prepared by Jakub Prchlik and Chunming Zhu)
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