Coronal Rain on the Sun

On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 6:10:37 AM UTC-7, Sam Wormley wrote:
Coronal Rain on the Sun

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130226.html



Explanation: Does it rain on the Sun? Yes, although what falls is not

water but extremely hot plasma. An example occurred in mid-July 2012

after an eruption on the Sun that produced both a Coronal Mass

Ejection and a moderate solar flare. What was more unusual, however,

was what happened next. Plasma in the nearby solar corona was imaged

cooling and falling back, a phenomenon known as coronal rain. Because

they are electrically charged, electrons, protons, and ions in the

rain were gracefully channeled along existing magnetic loops near the

Sun's surface, making the scene appear as a surreal three-dimensional

sourceless waterfall. The resulting surprisingly-serene spectacle is

shown in ultraviolet light and highlights matter glowing at a

temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. Each second in the above time

lapse video takes about 6 minutes in real time, so that the entire

coronal rain sequence lasted about 10 hours.

Tenfold hotter than the cool dark areas of the photosphere is impressive.

Too much metals inside the sun?