Photo credit: Jason Major
Photo processing guru Jason Major edited a massive coronal mass ejection captured by NASA on June 7th, 2011 by placing Earth in the upper left corner for scale. For those unfamiliar with the phenomena, it’s basically a significant release of plasma and magnetic field from the solar corona. They often follow solar flares and are normally present during a solar prominence eruption. The plasma is released into the solar wind, and can be observed in coronagraph imagery. Continue reading for another video and more information.
“They’re caused when solar plasma caught in a loop in the Sun’s magnetic field violently breaks out of the loop and blasts into space. For the image above, Major took a photo captured by NASA’s SDO spacecraft, rotated the view, and inserted the Earth to show just how large the prominence was,” according to Peta Pixel.
