14 DAY TRIAL // A recent NASA video, released by the space agency last Friday and available after the jump, shows a massive cloud of gas dancing and prancing just above the surface of the Sun.
The footage was obtained by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which was launched in February 2010 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and which has been studying our parent star ever since.
In the video's description, NASA scientists explain that such cool and yet high-density gas clouds that sometimes appear and can be seen hovering over the Sun are called prominences. Basically, they are gas eruptions.
This latest prominence documented by the agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory happened just days ago, on October 13. The cloud continued to twirl, moved by magnetic forces, for about 10 hours. Then, it disintegrated.
“A mass of 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 October 13, 2015,” reads the video's description.
“Prominences are unstable clouds of gas tethered above the surface of the Sun by magnetic forces,” NASA researchers further explain such phenomena on the surface of our star.
Usually, prominences are invisible to the naked eye. Thus, we ordinary folks can only hope to observe one during a solar eclipse. The October 13 gas cloud in this video was imaged by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in two wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light.
