APOD: 2024 August 18 – A Solar Prominence Eruption from SDO

Good morning, Rallypoint, and welcome to the August 18th edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held just above the surface by the Sun's magnetic field. And the one featured in this eight-second video is a big one...the entire Earth could fit under the curtain of solar gas and plasma. The video took nearly 90 minutes to record, and a new frame was captured every 24 seconds. A similar prominence and likely Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) occurred within the last 7-10 days, which resulted in the auroras seen around the globe during the annual Perseid Meteor shower. Cheers.