Spooky, Giant Prominence Haunts the Sun

This prominence from the Sun is approximately 158,000 km high. Credit: Monty Leventhal, OAM

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Just in time for Halloween, the Sun has been putting on some spectacular shows recently, including this ghostly-looking prominence captured by amateur astronomer Monty Leventhal from Australia. He estimates this giant pillar shot up over 158,000 km (98,000 miles) from the Sun’s surface! Monty took the image on October 26, 2011 using a Meade SC 10 inch telescope, with a Hydrogen Alpha filter and a Canon 300D camera.

Monty Leventhal is a noted amateur astronomer in Australia and his work has been recognized with several awards including a medal in the General Division of the Order of Australia, “For service to science through volunteer roles at the Sydney Observatory,” and also the Steavensen Award from the British Astronomical Association for his careful and conscientious observations of the Sun for almost two decades. Congratulations to Monty and we thank him for sharing his observations with Universe Today.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/