Solar Eye Candy

A filament of plasma erupts from the sun, and as some falls back it causes the surface to brighten. (Image: NASA Solar Dynamics Laboratory Facebook page) If you follow ImaGeo with any regularity, you probably know that I'm a bit obsessed with the sun. (And clouds too. But that's another story...) So I check in almost every day with the Facebook page of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The image above — a screenshot from a video — is what I just spotted. Click on the image to see the video. It shows delicate filaments of plasma hovering above the sun's surface. They are levitated by magnetic fields. Suddenly, filaments appear to shoot off. But some of the plasma also falls back to the sun's surface, causing a beautiful brightening. Check out the SDO Facebook page (link above) for more detail. Suffice it to say I'm simply enamored of the stunning imagery.