Breaking Away

All sorts of pieces of the Sun's outer atmosphere were flung into space as the STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft watched over about 2.5 days in extreme ultraviolet light (Nov. 23-25, 2010). Probably most dramatic was the massive swirling and unfurling of plasma tendrils above the edge of the Sun (lower right) that finally seemed to dissipate away. In addition, the active region (whiter area, upper right) shot off no fewer than10 spurts of plasma. And don't miss the two filament eruptions (lower left and upper left) in the first day as well. All of the activity is pretty normal behavior for our dynamic Sun, but we don't usually see this interesting variety in so short a period.

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