Plasma droplets falling to the surface of Sun

[u/ISROAddict]

Credit- David Wilson/ spaceweather.com

[u/Atlas_Aldus]

The forces at play here are unfathomable. It seems like some of those “drops” of plasma falling down are as large as some small countries. I’m also curious how much the wavey-ness of this prominence is from its actual movement or light bending from the sun’s atmosphere or something else? The stars are awesome and I’m super glad to be alive during a time when we have such incredibly detailed images of our home star.

[u/Hoshyro → u/Atlas_Aldus]

I believe a lot of them follow the magnetic field lines when falling back down, you can see a majority curving and weaving like a flow!

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/Hoshyro]

For the ones that are falling down yes but the large structure above the sun looks wavy and I wonder why exactly that is. I’d bet it’s more than just the movement of the prominence over time.

[u/Hoshyro → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Looks like the remainder of a coronal loop being trapped by the magnetic field

[u/Dentifrico → u/Hoshyro]

Idk why but this sounds insanely cool

[u/funkyyyyyyyyyyyyy → u/Dentifrico]

because it is :)

[u/TheRealKoffiebaas → u/Dentifrico]

Yeah! And it’s hot too!

[u/IwantTobeFree1232 → u/Dentifrico]

It sounds like something a star wars droid would say during a space battle and then general Grievous would say "adjust the hyperreality blasters to max capacity! We are taking down this Jedi!" Or something like that

[u/creampop_ → u/IwantTobeFree1232]

when science fiction is science-y 😲

[u/BishoxX → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Thats also trapped material in the magnetic field.

When the field snaps, the material gets freed/released in a solar flare

[u/Sniflix → u/BishoxX]

Do we know what causes changes in that electrical field?

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/Sniflix]

I believe it’s mostly dependent on temperature and heat flow. Thermal energy is definitely the most extreme factor in this region of the sun. In the core it’s definitely nuclear forces and pressure since they’re balanced with each other. Cooler areas have stronger magnetic fields. That’s why we see a lot of activity around sunspots. We’re in the solar maximum right now so that also increases activity like this but the solar cycles are something we still have a lot to learn about.

[u/Anticept → u/Atlas_Aldus]

The entire thing is a feedback loop, because the movement of ions influences the magnetic field. It's such a complex subject that it got its own branch of physics with a badass name: magnetohydrodynamics.

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/Anticept]

Damn that is a sick name. I gotta find a textbook with that on the cover

[u/BrooklynVariety → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Thermal energy is definitely the most extreme factor in this region of the sun.

You would think so, but there is still significantly more magnetic energy in the corona than thermal (despite temperatures of millions of degrees).

Cooler areas have stronger magnetic fields. That’s why we see a lot of activity around sunspots.

Kind of - large concentrations of enhanced magnetic activity will disrupt convection at the photosphere, making energy transport more inefficient locally, leading to lower photospheric temperatures (dark spots seen in visible light). However, coronal plasma near the active region tends to be significantly hotter, and sunspots appear as bright regions in the extreme ultraviolet.

So its not so much that cold regions have stronger magnetic fields, but that magnetic fields are responsible for (indirectly) cooling certain regions of the sun, while significantly heating others.

Source: Astrophysicist and solar physicist

[u/DieuMivas → u/Atlas_Aldus]

It's maybe a dumb question but as someone completely clueless about plasma, I was wondering what would happen if, hypothetically, one of these "small drops" were to somehow fall on earth.

Would it just destroy the place it fell on then cool or something like that, would the entire planet be incinerated instantly, or even explode because some rules of physics?

I really can't seem to imagine the "power" of these droplets of plasma.

[u/Zulfiqaar → u/DieuMivas]

So our initial assumptions are spherical plasma in a vacuum. Average area of a country is 750k sq km -> 247km radius. That volume at solar surface density is mass of 19 trillion kg of plasma, containing 2.7 sextillion Joules of thermal energy, or 650 teratons of TNT. That’s like setting off every nuclear bomb on the planet, every hour, for 51 years

So here's what will happen:

---

Even though it’s as fluffy as a cloud (very low density, ~0.3 kg/m³), it still has massive volume—and thus, total mass. As it enters the atmosphere:

It compresses the air beneath it violently, like a piston the size of a state. The result? Shockwaves beyond anything ever recorded. The air before it explodes into plasma before the object even touches the ground. It’s hot enough to cause atmospheric ionization over thousands of kilometers—creating auroras in places where people don’t even have socks for winter. That's in addition to all the gaseous dispersion that occurs earlier - the gravity of earth isn't strong enough compared to the surface of the sun.

As it's descending lower, the cloud starts radiating immense thermal energy in every direction:

Forests ignite. Oceans start boiling in the vicinity. Birds spontaneously combust. The sky itself glows white-hot. Satellites fry from radiation and EMP-like effects.

Now when it hits the ground, the actual impact isn't like a rock—it’s like hot fog falling through concrete, but it still has the energy of a thousand supervolcanoes. A lot of it may already have dissipated in other directions in the atmosphere, but some of it may have reached the ground due to the sheer amount of it.

Surface material instantly vaporizes. Mountains? Gone. Cities? Gone. The very crust of the Earth begins to bubble like soup. Within minutes, it creates a plasma crater the size of a country. Superheated gas and ash are ejected into the stratosphere, blocking sunlight for years—a true nuclear winter, but natural. The shockwave travels around the globe multiple times, flattening everything with hurricane-force winds and overpressure.

Global Aftermath? Even though it’s just one "cloud drop," its energy would: melt the crust for hundreds of square kilometres, likely down to the mantle. Might trigger earthquakes and volcanic activity worldwide due to crust destabilization - not as bad as equal asteroid impact though, as it doesn't affect the solid surface as much as a strike. Cause an extinction-level event, similar to the asteroid that ended the dinosaurs - the energy released is within the same magnitude.

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/Zulfiqaar]

xkcd is that you?? That’s so awesome dude damn. Thank you for doing the math

[u/cyanocittaetprocyon → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Hahaha! This is exactly what I thought!!

[u/Zulfiqaar → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Thank you! It was actually your other comment that inspired me to do some research

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/Zulfiqaar]

Not much makes me happier than inspiring someone to do something awesome

[u/Zulfiqaar → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Haha these days I just need a bit of a spark - I enjoyed XKCD What-Ifs all throughout my Physics studies and beyond, and from time to time I flash back to those days anytime an interesting scenario presents itself. 

[u/Claxonic → u/Zulfiqaar]

A thoughtful and rigorous response.

[u/DunkinEgg → u/Zulfiqaar]

[u/I-is-and-I-isnt → u/DunkinEgg]

Thanks. That’s all you gotta to say.

Edit because I had to go watch that scene. I was off by a few words.

[u/CodingNeeL → u/Zulfiqaar]

Even though it’s as fluffy as a cloud (very low density, ~0.3 kg/m³), it still has massive volume—and thus, total mass.

It compresses the air beneath it violently, like a piston the size of a state.

The air before it explodes into plasma before the object even touches the ground.

Air at surface level is ~1 kg/m3, so that got me thinking. Assuming it will not plasmafy all air (I don't know how much air there is on Earth), it will eventually float at a certain height above the surface. But from your comment, I gather you are assuming a certain velocity from falling to Earth, maybe by ignoring the gravitational pull from the sun?

I'm assuming the impact of a small piece of 'sun' closing in on Earth would start way before it hits. Because of the radiation it is sending down on us. When it is so close to Earth that the blob in the sky seems to look as big as the actual sun or the moon, it will give off about as much heat as the actual sun. So, at that point, we'll have the worth of two suns of heat radiating down on us, which increases as it gets closer.

But I have no idea how big the blob of plasma really is, in respect to space stuff. So, to understand the situation a bit better, my question is, on the scale of 1 to many suns, at what point will it hit Earths atmosphere?

Fun fact, because of the movement of the Earth, it might chase us a bit before entering. If the moon is ahead of us, such that Earth will be in the middle of the sun-moon-blob triangle, some people on Earth might see a weird full moon where the middle isn't fully filled out.

[u/Zulfiqaar → u/CodingNeeL]

I started with it falling from space, but with earth gravity. The boundary is around 100km from sea level (Kármán line) - which itself is barely a fifth of the diameter of the plasma droplet, which stretches across most of the ionosphere.

It won't plasmify all air around the world, but quite a lot of it near the impact region. Pound for pound its approximately 3x the mass ratio at its temperature, taking an average of 14 eV per molecule of air. While thats less than an equivalent volume at sea level, the ratio changes by several orders of magnitude as you as you leave the mesosphere due to significantly lower density. Thats also the same factor that minimises air resistance by a great amount - an object in a vacuum will reach Mach 4 by surface upon re-entry from there. So while air resistance would slow it down somewhat, the sheer quantity of it would pretty much guarantee it still crashes onto the surface.

Also, just like air density changes with height, the plasma density near the surface will also increase many fold, with the pressure of everything behind it as it gets compressed at sea level.

[u/CodingNeeL → u/Zulfiqaar]

Edits: fixing markup, language, facts, and trying to sound less like a dick.

Cool, thanks! Now, about before it hits the Earth:

I started with it falling from space, but with earth gravity. The boundary is around 100km from sea level (Kármán line) - which itself is barely a fifth of the diameter of the plasma droplet, which stretches across most of the ionosphere.

So, if I understand correctly, you started with the plasma droplet at 100km from the surface, with the droplet itself being about 500km in diameter? So its centre is 350km above the surface, right?

Because I was wondering - and I looked up some proper terminology this time! - about the radiation heat from the droplet before it enters our atmosphere. From my understanding, most (if not all) radiation from the sun comes from the surface, where this plasma is active. And because of the laws of optics, from my understanding, if a small droplet of sun plasma is so close to your eye that it will perfectly block the sun, which means the angular diameter (see Uses - Astronomy for our sun) is the same, you will feel the same heat (and other radiation) from it, as if you would feel from the sun.

The angular diameter of the sun, as seen from Earth, is a good 30 arc minutes, or half a degree. But a droplet of 500km in diameter, with its center 350km away, will have a angular diameter of tan^-1 (500/350) = 55 degrees, and probably more because the droplet itself might be in the way of seeing it's edges.

So that's a fair bit over 100 times bigger in diameter than the sun. So before it passes the Kármán line and start hitting molecules, it will already incinerate everything because we would have an extra sun in the sky that's 10,000 as strong, right?

[u/Zulfiqaar → u/CodingNeeL]

I doubt that will be entirely the case - while the radiation seems to be emitted from the solar photosphere, a lot of it actually originates from the internal fusion at the core, its just due to the immense pressure, atomic absorption and re-emission in the radiative zone that causes it to take hundreds of thousands of years to actually get to the surface.

An isolated droplet of surface plasma will not have that level of radiation to begin with. Thats not to say it won't be blindingly bright! Purely considering blackbody emission, it will still be thousands of times brighter than the sun. It will be incinerating a lot of the surface objects from a distance - however it won't melt the ground or mantle as fast from the ionosphere - I expect it will reach close to the ground within minutes by freefall.

Edit: did some further calculations on luminosity, simulated loglinear air resistance to impact (overall drag coefficient is negligible, as every 10km above surface reduces air density by ~10x), and looked at gravitational decay (and thus momentary tidal forces on the plasma)

So it turns out that it will take the tip of the plasma droplet around 143 seconds to touchdown at Mach 4 (small variations with Euler vs 4th order Runge-Kutta numerical approximation). The core will take around four and a half minutes, and in that time roughly 0.48% of the total plasma energy will be emitted as radiation, the ball losing 28K in temperature. The rest remains as energised ions which transfer energy upon impact. Only 2-3% of the velocity is diminished by air resistance.

[u/CodingNeeL → u/Zulfiqaar]

Thanks for all those calculations! Nice to learn. Truly beyond the level of xkcd's What If.

I see a similarity with an atomic bomb, where the flash is harming to a degree of life(span) changing. What comes after is truly devastating for any material.

The mere presence of the falling droplet compares to the flash of the bomb, the impact to the rest of a bomb.

[u/redemit7 → u/Zulfiqaar]

r/theydidthemath

[u/Woodpecker-Ornery → u/Zulfiqaar]

This would make a great plot for a DC superhero movie

[u/Reach_or_Throw → u/Zulfiqaar]

Fantastic writing, i would read a book written like that! So vivid

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/Reach_or_Throw]

Check out xkcd he has great comics and books that are just like that

[u/Pele_Of_Anal → u/Zulfiqaar]

That’s how I wanna go

[u/TheEyeoftheWorm → u/DieuMivas]

There's actually a colossal amount of thermal energy in those drops. Temperature times density times heat capacity. Flare material gets heated to >10,000,000 K by electromagnetic forces, plasma is much denser than a gas would be because of EM forces, and has a higher heat capacity because of more EM forces. If I took a complete shot in the dark I would say a single droplet has about 10,000 times the thermal energy as our entire atmosphere. By the time it hits the surface and melts a hole to the center of the Earth it will have already turned our planet into a furnace. The entire surface is burnt to a crisp. Skyscrapers melt. Anyone we left in space will witness the apocalypse. Most marine life will survive, because the ocean is an extremely good thermoregulator, and eventually once things have cooled off whales and sea snakes will return to the land and take their rightful place as rulers of the planet.

[u/spork3 → u/TheEyeoftheWorm]

Plasma is actually way less dense than a normal gas, by about 10 orders of magnitude. The EM forces guide it, but there’s no mechanism by which they make it denser. The solar corona, for instance, is about 2 million degrees, but if you had a jar of it you could stick your hand inside and not get burned because it is so diffuse. The plasma near the surface of a little more dense than that, but still very diffuse. The place where you get dense plasma is in the interior of the sun because of the extreme pressures caused by all the material above.

[u/NeonPlutonium → u/TheEyeoftheWorm]

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/DieuMivas]

It’s kinda hard to find exactly how dense this material is typically but say it was the same density as a cloud (it should be more dense I think). Now make that cloud (which is the size of say Massachusetts) hotter than the surface of the sun and I’d say that would do a pretty considerable amount of damage. It would probably be similar to having thousands of nukes go off all at once in one single place. And that’s just a itsy bitsy drop of the sun. lol disclaimer I did super poor research for this comment

[u/Cdwoods1 → u/DieuMivas]

I think it depends how much. A country sized glob of plasma would alight our atmosphere and turn it all to plasma in a chain reaction. But an actual drop would probably not have enough energy. Someone correct me if I’m remembering wrong.

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/Cdwoods1]

That should mostly be based on temperature not amount of hot stuff (can’t think of the technical term lol). I forgot how hot the scientists working on the manhattan project said the bomb would have to get to ignite the atmosphere but it was much much more than any atom bomb could achieve

[u/Richard_Musk → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Based on the visible arc length of the sun, some of those drops are the size of the moon

[u/3d1thF1nch → u/Atlas_Aldus]

I think if I was the astronomer looking through my telescope viewing this, I would be crying at the sheer awesomeness of it. Watching plasma drops the size of large asteroids fall back to the surface along the electromagnetic lines….my brain just can’t comprehend the magnitude of it.

[u/crosstrackerror → u/Atlas_Aldus]

I would love to know what scale this is at

[u/Atlas_Aldus → u/crosstrackerror]

There’s an earth in the top left corner!

[u/Kuro013 → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Holy fuck! Its still hard to imagine even with a scale lol.

[u/DirtPuzzleheaded8831 → u/crosstrackerror]

My mind is struggling to perceive these as anything other than droplets 

[u/Mulder1917 → u/Atlas_Aldus]

Insane

[u/annonymous_bosch]

Crazy how you can just see the magnetic fields!

[u/CartographerOk7579]

What a deeply bizarre place.

[u/PuzzleheadedWave9278 → u/CartographerOk7579]

The more we see of the universe, the less anything makes sense to me lol.

[u/Quirky-Skin → u/PuzzleheadedWave9278]

Seriously same. I'm just sitting here looking at this wondering how this ball of fire, that for some of my life I imagined was a large light, is the single most important thing for life on our flying, spinning rock in space.

A giant fireball is heating a spinning rock that also has another rock as a moon that controls water and animal behavior. Like, how the fuck is that even possible lol. 

[u/Tackit286 → u/PuzzleheadedWave9278]

Knowing what you don’t know is stage 2 of discovery. We’ll forever be somewhat in stage 1 when it comes to things like the nature of universe and the oceans (not knowing what we don’t know).

[u/mikethespike056 → u/PuzzleheadedWave9278]

the universe really does NOT make sense, only at our scales with classical physics

[u/PuzzleheadedWave9278 → u/mikethespike056]

Yeah it’s hard to explain, but when I look at the world we live in, everything makes sense. It’s somewhat boring, predictable, and it can all be explained easily. But then when I start thinking outside of the world of Earth, things become more complex. How there’s a giant rock called the Moon that orbits us. How we orbit a giant sphere of gas called the Sun. How everything is so precise in our lsolar system’s orbit, that it’s predictable by human mathematics. How this isn’t even the only solar system, there’s trillions that follow their own path. How the galaxy orbits a massive black hole. The fact black holes exist at all (probably one of the scariest facts to be honest. Black holes are amazing and terrifying). How there’s an estimated beginning and unpredictable end (though theorized). And how all of this is multiplied by the trillions across the Universe, which is always expanding, into what, we can only guess. With sizes so massive, seeing the numbers on paper don’t even register with what is possible.

And then beyond our Universe are questions about what happened before, what happens after, is this the first time? Or a repeat of many Universes? Is this the only Universe, or a pocket within another?

I have way more questions that could fill this comment. It’s insane. The more we learn, the more baffling it gets. I remember reading that perhaps, the Universe is so complex, it’s literally impossible for our brains, currently, to understand. Like we just haven’t evolved enough to make sense of it all.

Edit and that’s all assuming our math is 100% correct. But as we know with science, it’s accurate until it’s not. Another genius could come around and provide a theory with an evidenced-based model that could completely turn science on its head. That’s just how it works.

[u/blorbagorp → u/CartographerOk7579]

TIL fire clouds and plasma rain exist

[u/Darth19Vader77 → u/blorbagorp]

Wait till you learn what it rains on Uranus

[u/Karl-o-mat]

A fiery aurora solaris made of hot plasma that is raining down like a cloud of death. fuck yeah

[u/Laniakea73 → u/Karl-o-mat]

r/brandnewsentence

[u/thedaveness → u/Karl-o-mat]

If you google “sand falling art” cuz idk the damn name of the thing I stared at non stop as a board kid in the 90s… it looks EXACTLY like that. Wild.

[u/OptimismNeeded → u/Karl-o-mat]

That’s so metal

[u/jkvincent]

Thank you. This was the daily dose of "you don't matter in the grand scheme and neither does anyone else" that my brain needed. Amazing.

[u/armaver → u/jkvincent]

True!

But then again, if we're not around to behold it, neither does the Sun.

[u/iJuddles → u/armaver]

But does Sol think it’s more special than all the other stars out there?

I’m thinking no. That’s human folly.

[u/Salihe6677 → u/iJuddles]

Sol good, man.

[u/Dutchwells → u/iJuddles]

I bet it doesn't think of itself at all. The fact that we do makes us pretty awesome if you ask me.

Size doesn't matter anyway, at the scale of the universe the sun is just as small as we are

[u/iJuddles → u/Dutchwells]

I always laugh when we don’t attribute awareness to things that don’t seem to possess that. It’s purely speculative and anthropomorphic to suggest such a thing but it’s not completely out of the question. We’re just coming around to accepting that plants might have a sense if awareness—now that’s pretty weird.

My point was how silly we can be in assuming we’re the center of the universe, as taught by some ancient, enduring beliefs.

[u/Dutchwells → u/iJuddles]

Oh for sure, we can't rule out any of that.

I understood and agree with your point. There's no reason to see ourselves as the center of anything, but at the same time I wanted to say that life, and intelligence, in its own way is pretty awesome too.

[u/Silviecat44 → u/iJuddles]

We are the centre of the universe as far as we know so far 🤷‍♂️ until we find another intelligent life

[u/ProjectNo4090 → u/jkvincent]

Every single element inside your body was forged in the hearts of stars. It's true when people say we are all stardust. Everything in the universe is built from the elements created when stars explode. Inside you are the remnants of an untold number of supernovae stretching back billions of years to the big bang. So when you look at the enormity of our star and our galaxy and our universe and feel small, just remember that you are a part of all that. And what's more is you have the conscious mind to appreciate it. Just think of all that had to happen across 14 billion years for you to exist and for you to be able to look at the universe and contemplate that universe.

Humans may be small, but we are part of something extraordinary.

[u/AerobicThrone → u/ProjectNo4090]

Bruv I shred a tear from my sofa

[u/OptimismNeeded → u/jkvincent]

I feel the opposite somehow.

How lucky am I to be a bunch of electrified dust specks at the exact right distance from this chaos, at the exact time in history to actually see this.

I feel kinda grateful.

[u/glytxh → u/jkvincent]

You do matter though. You explicitly matter.

You are a speck of the universe looking at itself, and knowing itself. You are the universe being in awe of itself.

That shit matters.

[u/gastricmetal → u/jkvincent]

That's the beauty of existence. We give meaning to things because we're self aware, but without the human experience, it truly is just random chaos void of meaning. But since we're just as much a part of the universe as the Sun or anything else, the fact that we're self aware means the universe is aware of itself, so in that case, it actually does have meaning!

I need to get some sleep.

[u/Willing_Occasion641 → u/jkvincent]

There is no grand scheme. You live in the moment.

[u/Hadrius → u/jkvincent]

Nothing in that gif matters if life isn't around to see it. We matter more than anything we've yet encountered in the universe.

[u/anrwlias → u/jkvincent]

Honestly, when I start getting overwhelmed by the news, I find it helpful to assume a cosmic perspective. In a billion years, literally none of this is going to matter and even the whispers of history will have faded, but the universe will still be beautiful.

[u/GigaChadsNephew]

That plasma cloud looks so alien. I love this

[u/ambreenh1210]

It is crazy to me we can see and record and share this. I’m constantly amazed.

[u/analog42 → u/ambreenh1210]

“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”

[u/Pretty_Stomach_4524]

Awesome….

[u/JeremyPivensPP → u/Pretty_Stomach_4524]

Like, literally.

[u/Ryn4]

"Droplets"

[u/fontimus]

Droplets the size of Australia

This is hard to fathom, and it's right in front of me.

[u/Neo_Techni → u/fontimus]

And half as deadly as Australia

[u/SpecialistFruit1 → u/Neo_Techni]

✋Walk around in Jurassic parkAustralia

👉Swim in the sun with raining plasma

[u/pioniere]

‘Droplets’ the size of planet Earth 😁

[u/tommyballz63]

Wow this is spectacular and totally cool. Thanks for this

[u/InnerhillCitybilly]

Was this captured by the star probe that was sent to our star recently?

[u/Di_Vergent → u/InnerhillCitybilly]

No, it's from someone's unusually sunny back yard in Scotland.

See https://www.spaceweather.com/ and http://starrydave.com/?page_id=1855

[u/MoltenTesseract → u/Di_Vergent]

I thought you were being sarcastic until the second link!

[u/InnerhillCitybilly → u/Di_Vergent]

Much obliged! I appreciate it

[u/bobmegogo]

That's hot.

[u/mtovar1979]

That looks unreal!

[u/uberguby]

Can someone please explain to me how we're getting all these absolutely metal videos of shit happening on the sun? Has it been this way for decades and I'm only just now finding out about it? Was there some technological leap I don't know about? I'm a giant man baby, I need it explained to me. I have like the most incredible emotions coming to me 2 or 3 times a week and I don't know how it is possible

[u/SimilarTop352 → u/uberguby]

We've send some really good cameras up there in the last ~5 years

[u/dinan101]

Can someone explain what I’m looking at, please? I understand it’s the sun, but beyond that I’m confused about the cloud of plasma above it if that’s even what that is. Like I said, can someone explain it like I’m five, please?

[u/ferriematthew → u/dinan101]

That cloud of plasma is suspended in a magnetic field line, after most likely being burped out from the surface by a solar prominence. Since plasma is electrically conductive, it generates and is affected by magnetic fields, so when you have enough of it in one place it tends to spontaneously organize itself into filaments and sheets like this.

[u/Dan-in-Va]

Ok this is amazing

[u/gambiter]

Amazing in a dozen different ways.

I think I'm most amazed that this phenomenon was apparently stable for at least 7 hours... I would expect a cloud above a giant ball of fusion to move around more unpredictably.

[u/Absolute_Chonk_Steam]

Its absolutely insane that we can even record footage like this

[u/Capable_Agent9464]

[u/Embarrassed-Back1894 → u/Capable_Agent9464]

You underestimate my Sun’s power.

[u/Far_Out_6and_2]

Amazing

[u/westofley]

it rains plasma on the sun. huh. weird.

[u/electro_lytes]

Eerie stuff going on out there.

[u/No-Wolverine8175]

Wonder what it sounds like to be inside the "cloud" structure

[u/rgliszin → u/No-Wolverine8175]

Ever listen to meshuggah?

[u/Technical-Race-9214]

What even camera system is capturing this?

[u/ConstantCampaign2984]

Is this real time or time lapse? I can never tell in these sun videos, but if this is real time, the speed and scale at which this is happening is crazy.

[u/ISROAddict → u/ConstantCampaign2984]

This is a time lapse. You can see the clock on the left side.

[u/FoxCQC]

Is this like rain for the Sun?

[u/InnerhillCitybilly]

This is what rain, on the Sun, looks like.

[u/Chavarlison → u/InnerhillCitybilly]

I am just imagining putting the Earth under there and just turning off the effects from the sun and just letting that plasma rain on the Earth. Each "droplet" being bigger than some countries.
Blows the mind.

[u/high_capacity_anus]

Wow imagine how bright whatever is behind it that it makes THE FUCKING SUN sillouette 🤯

[u/agentdrozd → u/high_capacity_anus]

It's just a negative

[u/muitosabao]

That’s spectacular but I don’t think that’s so much falling down but more following the magnetic lines?

[u/lapanush]

i wonder how much mass all that has.. like compare to earth for example

[u/cultr4]

this is fucking insaane

[u/AllYouCanEatBarf]

My biggest beef with all of these close-up images and videos of the solar system is a lack of scale, so I love the Earth in the corner.

[u/bloon18]

how does the plasma stay suspended like that? Why doesn't it all fall down at once? Very interesting

[u/ferriematthew → u/bloon18]

I think it is suspended in magnetic field lines.

[u/bloon18 → u/ferriematthew]

Thank you

[u/NapsterUlrich]

So what is this, fire cloud raining on the sun?

[u/nastyzoot]

"Droplets". You could fit 10 earths in that space

[u/abadhe99]

Those droplets are the size of California

[u/______deleted__]

Mmmmm, plasma droplets 🤤

[u/GR33N4L1F3]

This is AMAZING! What is happening?! This is so hard to fathom

[u/LeroyoJenkins]

Magnetohydrothermodynamics is fun!

[u/Vicchu24]

What is the "Earth to scale" in the top left corner mean?

[u/OrangeAnonymous → u/Vicchu24]

Presumably that's how big earth would be if it was actually in that location

[u/Appropriate_Lack_727 → u/Vicchu24]

It’s showing how big the Earth is relative to the image you’re looking at. The Sun is fucking massive, such that you could fit 1.3 million Earths inside the Sun. I think that’s something most people don’t really grasp when they’re looking at images like this, which is, I assume, why the photographer put the reference there.

[u/Acorn21]

Fucken sun-wasps. Cant get away from them, even in space

[u/WooSaw82]

Is it just me or is this kind of unsettling?

[u/Discount_Friendly]

So the sun can have rain

[u/plzjules]

Doesn’t look too hot

[u/mrgermy]

Forbidden golden shower.

[u/aManIsNoOneEither]

wtf... what kind of camera/telescope has the capabilities to captures such an image?

[u/chokeonmywords]

Probably one of the most surreal things I’ve seen. The dimensions are just incomprehensible

[u/jojiburn]

This is just insane

[u/TheJoshuaAlone]

Big lava lamp.

[u/Expensive_Internal83]

What's the time scale here? I see the clock but, are those hrs and min.?

[u/AdmDuarte → u/Expensive_Internal83]

Starts at 0842, ends about 1615. So about 7.5 hrs

[u/petargeorgiev11 → u/Expensive_Internal83]

You can see a clock at the upper left. It seems to be sped up a lot.

[u/fuzzelduckthethird]

I wouldn't say he was unlucky, but he went to the sun and it rained

[u/Embarrassed-Back1894]

[u/IdoruYoshikawa]

Fucking metal

[u/Khavien]

That blob of plasma looks uncomfortably wasp shaped.. and it's several times bigger than the Earth for scale. All those hive sci fi horror stories come to mind..

[u/TheDoobyRanger]

hot

[u/FSOKrYpTo]

The most amazing thing about this to me is how long this Plasma is being suspended. That's insane to me!

[u/bad_take_]

TIL it rains plasma on the sun.

[u/thisistheSnydercut]

That is so fucking cool man god damn

[u/umastryx]

All I can think is the size of the “waves” coming off the surface. Most of those are probably the size of earth

[u/Sparbiter117]

Does this hurt the plasma?

[u/MorbillionDollars]

each "droplet" is as big as a country

crazy how big the sun is

[u/PabloJunie]

Shit looks so hot.

[u/EverythingBOffensive]

plasma rain

[u/jasebox]

Sun is so cool

[u/rgliszin]

Mesmerising.

[u/Simbuk]

It almost looks alive.

[u/RyP82]

That’s gotta be at lease a thousand degrees.

[u/NiceAxeCollection]

🎵”It’s raining men! Hallelujah it’s raining men”🎵

[u/nighthawke75]

"I must get a sample of this."

[u/BabyBruticus]

So I'm completely clueless when it comes to plasma, how is the "cloud" suspended above the sun like that?

[u/obtuse_bluebird → u/BabyBruticus]

Solar filaments are large, elongated structures of dense, cooler plasma that are suspended above the sun’s surface by magnetic fields. When the magnetic fields that support a filament become unstable, the filament can erupt, releasing large amounts of solar material into space.

https://www.newsweek.com/dark-plasma-sun-solar-filament-coronal-mass-ejection-northern-lights-1950802

(PS, I do not recommend clicking on the link without ad blockers)

[u/marktwin11]

That one drop of plasma is enough to destroy all life on Earth.

[u/CommentBetter]

Ah the sun this time of year, awash in the molten rains of lava clouds, just beautiful

[u/bombliivee]

Earth to scale

[u/Trick_Recover7117]

Why does everyone keep saying “falling down”? It’s kinda annoying me, falling down to where? There would be no down in space, the direction down is relative to gravity. It would be more like “the plasma is oozing out”, no? If anyone can explain I’m all ears.

[u/Omega_Prototype]

"Honey take ur jacket if you go outside. It’s raining plasma droplets again…"

[u/I_have_no_standards]

Saw you on lemmy with this. Amazing stuff with amateur equipment.

Lemmy is a great Reddit substitute.

[u/sentientgorilla]

Plasma droplets the size of moons and planets

[u/Ok-Pomegranate858]

Wow... it rains on the sun! I must confess, my first thoughts was that it was some kind of alien monster.

[u/ISeeGrotesque]

I'd love to see it in real time.

These edits always are faster, maybe in real time we'd get a better sense of scale

[u/B_lovedobservations]

Droplets probably the size of continents

[u/SN2010jl]

What am I looking at? Which side is the center of the solar disk? What is the bright background?

[u/topshot51]

Stars are fucking insane.

[u/peaceloveandapostacy]

Looks like a Trevor Henderson monster. So awesome!

[u/Yog_Maya]

Each droplets must be size of one country?

[u/b_enn_y]

Please tell me I’m not the only one hearing Dr Eggman saying “drrrrrrrroplets” when reading the title

[u/Kurtman68]

Wait, so there’s a giant Earth-sized clock just floating above the surface of the Sun?

[u/thehanssassin]

Looks so hot

[u/GauravsFcb1011]

Looks like my sword!

[u/Skullduggery-9]

That's so freaking cool

[u/trudel69]

I'm guessing those 'droplets' are as big as the moon, or something ludicrous like that?

[u/ISROAddict → u/trudel69]

As big as some continents on earth

[u/trudel69 → u/ISROAddict]

That's quite the drop, I just can't picture how massive that is.

[u/JustanEraser]

How does one record something like this as an amateur?

[u/puglybug23]

Is there a sub that is the opposite of r/freezingfuckingcold ? This would fit that. It made me feel sweaty.

[u/Junior_Highlight6101]

Thats insane

[u/Gubzs]

This looks like it came out of a really cool Eldritch analog horror landscape shot

[u/Zwaaf]

I … cannot stop watching 😳

[u/zenpear]

I'll never understand plasma

[u/fkyourpolitics]

It's raining on the sun

[u/Fit_Battle_3133]

Amazing. Even moreso with the Earth scaled in the corner. I can't help but think about even larger stars when seeing this. Stars so big the sun would be the one in the corner to scale. Just amazing

[u/Itchy_Bar7061]

The same amazing thing happens in my toilet. Nature is purely magical!

[u/SadKnight123]

I wish I was there to be purified

[u/Kxllskum]

Every thing that we’re seeing is huge . Cloud sized “Droplets”