18. This false-color image, taken by an amateur astronomer in Stuttgart, Germany, shows clouds of solar gas, called prominences, held just above the surface by the sun's magnetic field. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month and may erupt in a coronal mass ejection (CME) expelling hot gas into the solar system.
19. This SOHO image is in extreme-ultraviolet wavelengths, color-coded by temperature, with red showing the hottest. Why is the halo-like corona, visible from Earth only during a total eclipse, hundreds—even thousands—of times hotter than the sun's surface? That's one of the questions that keep scientists looking straight at the sun.
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