SpaceWeather.com | Rocketing Solar Plasma Blob on September 5, 2009

ROCKETING PLASMA BLOB: Solar activity is low, but it's not zero. Consider the following: On Sept. 5th, Jean-Paul Godard of Paris, France, was watching some prominences gently wave over the edge of the sun when, suddenly, a plasma blob rocketed into view.

Click to view animation:

"I've never seen a fast ejection like this before," says Godard. "I recorded the action using a 3-inch refracting telescope and a Coronado SolarMax filter."

The blob does not appear to have escaped the sun. Indeed, it might not have been a blob at all, but rather a plasma wave traveling up a magnetic flux tube--and 'breaking' when it reached the top. Whether it was a rocketing blob or breaking wave, it shows that even the quiet sun is worth watching. Monitoring is encouraged.

more images: from Alan Friedman of Buffalo, New York; from Cai-Uso Wohler of Bispingen, Germany; from Francisco A. Rodriguez of Cabreja Mountain Observatory, Canary Islands; from Jimmy Eubanks of Boiling Springs, South Carolina; from Pavol Rapavy of Observatory Rimavska Sobota, Slovakia;