A million-mile-long plasma explosion from the surface of the sun was captured over several hours by an astrophotographer.
The coronal mass ejection (CME) composite was published online.
Andrew McCarthy, an astrophotographer, posted a composite image of the million-mile-long CME online, and the Reddit post quickly gained popularity.
Hundreds of Thousands of Images
McCarthy claimed that today's coronal mass ejection was the largest one he had ever seen.
He displayed the composite image of the CME that was made by using a highly modified telescope to take hundreds of thousands of images over the course of several hours.
Coronal Mass Ejections
Large clouds of plasma known as coronal mass ejections are ejected by the sun at magnetically active regions of the surface, frequently sun spots.
Plasma is launched into space as twisted magnetic-field lines on the surface of the sun suddenly change their configuration.
CMEs have a maximum speed of 6.7 million miles per hour and can carry massive quantities of coronal plasma.
Depending on how powerful the CME is, it can directly affect geomagnetic storms toward the Earth.
McCarthy captured this massive CME by taking numerous photos over the course of several hours and combining them, monitoring the solar activity from almost a million miles away.
Million-Mile-Long Plasma Explosion
One commenter even added a picture of the Earth to McCarthy's image to demonstrated how large the CME was in relation to the size of our planet.
McCarthy was able to capture the CME using a highly specialized telescope that picked up light wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye, specifically hydrogen alpha wavelengths produced by solar hydrogen atoms.
McCarthy explained that since the hydrogen alpha light emits a pinkish-red color, what is visible in the composite is false color.
These are photographed using such a limited bandpass that the resulting image is essentially monochrome; therefore, the color depth is artificially added to improve the details and aesthetics.
Warning from a Professional with a Modified Telescope
According to the astrophotographer, the sun is completely white to the naked eye and has no details.
However, he is more focused on capturing what the eyes cannot see.
Nevertheless, the photographer cautions that without the right knowledge, using a telescope to observe the sun can be extremely dangerous.
He emphasized that it is never a good idea to point a telescope at the sun as this will only fry the camera, or even worse, the eyes of the viewer.
Furthermore, he explained how his telescope had been modified specifically to view the sun using several filters, Newsweek reported.
Sky & Telescope said on their website that the sun's disk is too bright and that prolonged and direct exposure can permanently harm the retina, resulting in vision loss or even blindness.
More than 99% of the sun's light must be blocked before it reaches the viewer's eyes to safely observe the sun.
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