Video: Hefty Prominence Eruption Observed by SDO

A mass of solar material gathered itself into a twisting mass, spun around for a bit, then rose up and broke apart over a 10-hour period on Oct. 13, 2015. Prominences are unstable clouds of gas tethered above the surface of the sun by magnetic forces.

The image and video were produced with a combination of two wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, 193 and 304 Angstroms. Though invisible to our eyes, these wavelengths are typically colorized in bronze and red, respectively. Much of the jittering and odd jumping motions above the surface were artifacts caused by brightening and contrast changes used to bring out the detail and structure of the prominence.