A Solar Prominence with a Chewy Nougat
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While bright loops and dark holes are commonly seen in X-ray images of the sun, other shapes inspire pareidolia but the cause of these shapes are not obvious. When I first looked at the above thin_Be image, I noted an interesting wishbone shape. XRT observes the hottest parts of the sun's atmosphere and this shape suggests there is a long hot channel embedded in a region with little to no x-rays. There are no coronal holes (black regions) or active regions (bright white regions) anywhere near this structure. To find out what could cause this, I downloaded an H-alpha (visible red light) image taken at the Cerro Tololo Observatory as part of the GONG network. I used the edge of the sun to align the images and discovered the cause of the long bright channel is a solar prominence. Solar prominences are long, linear structures composed of cool plasma that is suspended in the atmosphere. They are typically embedded in dark tubes but sometimes, these tubes have a bright x-ray core that solar scientists have dubbed the chewy nougat.
Just like a snickers bar, solar prominences contain a lot of calories making for spectacular coronal mass ejections that lead to
beautiful aurora.
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(Prepared by Patricia Jibben)
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