prominence
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Observations made by astronauts aboard Skylab enabled a huge advance in our understanding of solar phenomena. Here a solar prominence is captured in ultraviolet light by the solar coronagraph operated by US astronaut Owen Garriot of the Skylab 3 mission.
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Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) image of a solar prominence, taken on 14 September 1999. Prominences are huge clouds of relatively cool dense plasma suspended in the Sun's corona. The lightest areas seen on the Sun's surface are the hottest and the darkest are the coolest.
Bright cloud of gas projecting from the Sun into space 100,000 km/60,000 mi or more. Quiescent prominences last for months, and are held in place by magnetic fields in the Sun's corona. Surge prominences shoot gas into space at speeds of 1,000 kps/600 mps.
Loop prominences are gases falling back to the Sun's surface after a solar flare.
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