Spectacular solar prominence eruption, April 2015

On April 28, 2015, a very large “prominence“ erupted from the Sun, resulting in these awesome images recorded by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and ESA/NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Eruptions like this are actually quite common, and often very beautiful. The prominence itself (also sometimes known as a “filament“) is essentially a thin veil of very hot gas suspended above the solar surface by magnetic fields. Sometimes, via some process we still don’t fully understand, the prom