A magnetic flux rope occurs on the sun’s surface.

A magnetic flux rope occurs on the sun’s surface. The S-shaped rope’s twisting, writhing structure is a surface instability made of current-carrying magnetic fields that explode out of the surrounding solar atmosphere. It emerged and evolved from the second of three layers in our star’s atmosphere called the chromosphere. 

Researchers recorded the event in August 2013 using the New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory east of Los Angeles. Imagery and analysis of the event appeared in the journal Nature Communications.

Paper:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150428/ncomms8008/full/ncomms8008.html

Article:
http://txchnologist.com/post/117711510520/this-is-the-first-high-resolution-footage-of-a

#astronomy   #plasma   #physics   #sun   #space