Prominences are huge plumes of glowing gas that can extend over 50,000 km from the Sun's surface, erupting for minutes to hours and sending material into space. They can remain trapped in magnetic fields for weeks, glowing the entire time. Solar flares are brief but bright eruptions in the chromosphere that are related to sunspots and can twist magnetic fields, while coronal mass ejections are larger bursts of plasma and fields that shoot off the surface and sometimes hit Earth, causing auroras and disruptions to technology.

2. Prominences are huge plumes
of glowing gas that jut from the
lower chromosphere into the
corona
It is an arc of gas that erupts
from the surface of the Sun.
PROMINENCE

7. Prominences can extend 30,000
miles (50,000 kilometers) or more
above the sun's surface. Upon
reaching this height, they can erupt
for a few minutes to hours and send
large amounts of material racing
through the corona and outward into
space.

8. Under favorable conditions,
the gas in a prominence may
remain trapped in its magnetic
prison and glow for weeks.

9. Sunspots also give birth to
solar flares, which are brief but
bright eruptions of hot gas in
the chromosphere.

11. The Flare shown was an X-class Flare (most powerful) which occurred
on August 9, 2011.

12. Solar flares
were first observed in
1859 by Lord Richard
C. Carrington.

13. The biggest solar storm
ever recorded was
the Carrington Flare of
1859. It was the first Solar
Flare ever recorded.

14. One hypothesis suggests that
flares arise when the field near a
sunspot gets twisted by gas
motions.

15. Closely related to flares, but on a
much larger scale, are coronal mass
ejections.
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are
bursts of solar material (clouds of plasma
and magnetic fields) that shoot off the
sun's surface.

18. The most spectacular auroral events
on Earth occur when one of these ejections
strikes our planet .

21. Strong flares and coronal
mass ejections can also disrupt
communications, disable satellites,
and even induce electric currents that
force power grids to shut down.