VIDEO: Check out this gigantic eruption from the Sun

An impressive outburst from the solar surface was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory this month

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Solar material gathered itself into a twisting mass, spun around for a bit, then rose up and broke apart over a 10-hour period on 13 October 2015. Prominences are unstable clouds of gas tethered above the surface of the Sun by magnetic forces.

The image and video were produced with a combination of two wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, 193 and 304 Angstroms. Though invisible to our eyes, these wavelengths are typically colourised in bronze and red, respectively. Much of the jittering and odd jumping motions above the surface were artefacts caused by brightening and contrast changes used to bring out the detail and structure of the prominence.

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