It occurs every 11 years during the maximum of the solar activity cycle . On February 12, the sungazing SOHO spacecraft captured this dramatic image of a magnificent prominence above the Sun's limb. Seen at the lower right, streams of relatively cool dense plasma were lofted along looping magnetic field lines extending outward about 30 times the diameter of planet Earth. Far above the limb at the upper right, a disconnected ghostly arc surrounds a dark cavity with bright central emission. Enormous, intensely bright active regions also mottle the solar surface in this image, recorded in the light of energetic Helium atoms by SOHO's Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope.
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