Through the process of nuclear fusion, the Sun burns about 600 million tons of hydrogen into 596 million tons of helium every second, with the remainder converted into pure energy according to Einstein’s equation, e = mc2, where e is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum. This mass-to-energy conversion powers life on Earth.
In the corona, the Sun’s outer layer, radiated energy drives convection that causes hot plasma to bubble up and forces cooler plasma down. This convection, combined with the Sun’s rotation, generates intense magnetic fields. Regions where the magnetic field lines are concentrated and twisted often erupt into solar prominences – massive, bright arcs of plasma that can loop hundreds of thousands of kilometers into space.
Total solar eclipses always blow my mind. This time, I watched in awe from a street corner in downtown Montréal as bright red prominences danced on the Sun’s limb, caught for a moment between the gray streaks of the corona, the darkness of the Moon, and the blue-black sky.
