Photo credit: Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau
Astrophotographer Eduardo Schaberger Pupeau from Argentina managed to capture a stunning 60,000-mile-tall plasma waterfall on the Sun, equivalent to eight Earths stacked atop each other. They look like threads of plasma dripping down a wall, but this phenomenon is actually known as a polar crown prominence (PCP), which are similar to normal solar prominences.
These loops of plasma, or ionized gas, are basically ejected from the solar surface by magnetic fields. The main difference between PCPs and solar prominences is that the latter occurs near the Sun’s magnetic poles at latitudes between 60 and 70 degrees North and South. This means they collapse back towards the sun because the magnetic fields near the poles are much stronger.
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