See the Earth at the upper-left of the image to compare size relationship.
"The M1.7-class flare that erupted from active region 1461 on Monday, April 16 let loose an enormous coronal mass ejection many, many times the size of Earth, making this particular writer very happy that our planet was safely tucked out of aim at the time… and 93 million miles away."
"The big solar flare and coronal mass ejection earlier this week created an unusual event on the Sun: it rained. Not water drops of course, but coronal rain. After the eruption, blobs of plasma fell back to the surface of the Sun, sometimes making ‘splashes’ where they hit. Coronal rain is plasma gas that condenses in the corona and then descends back to the surface. It has long been a mystery and its motion has perplexed solar physicists. For some reason, coronal rain falls much slower than is expected for plasma falling due to the huge gravitational pull of the Sun. Many times, rather than falling straight down — as it would if gravity was the only force pulling on it — the plasma rain follows invisible magnetic field lines, which can be detected by instruments on board watchful spacecraft."
"SDO observed a beautiful prominence eruption shot off the east limb (left side) of the Sun (April 16, 2012). Such eruptions are often associated with solar flares, and in this case an M1.7 class (medium-sized) flare did occur at the same time, though it was not aimed toward Earth. The movie (in extreme ultraviolet light) covers four hours of activity. As we have observed in some other events, some of the charged particles do not have enough force behind them to break away and they can be seen streaming back into the Sun."
BigBlast304_fnl_best.mpg - mpeg movie
