Is something lurking just over the sun's eastern limb?

solar activity
©Pete Lawrence


Yesterday's impressive display suggests the answer is yes. Amateur astronomers in Europe and North America witnessed fountains of hot, magnetized gas surging over the eastern edge of the sun. "My hard drive is full of movies," says Didier Favre of Brétigny sur Orge, France, who counted no fewer than seven eruptions.

Veteran observer Pete Lawrence of Selsey, UK, took the picture above. "This is the first time I've ever seen material moving visually away from the surface of the Sun," he says. "What a treat!"

Readers, if you have a solar telescope, train it on the eastern edge of the sun. "The area," says Lawrence, "appears full of promise."

more images: from Britta Suhre of Dortmund, Germany; from Monty Leventhal of Sydney, Australia; from Les Cowley of eastern England; from Stephen Ames of Hodgenville, Kentucky; from Cai-Uso Wohler of Bispingen, Germany; from C. Miller and J. Stetson of South Portland, Maine; from Malcolm Park of London, England.