NASA spots incredible pink 'flames' pulsing out from behind the total solar eclipse - what are they?

A NASA photographer captured spellbinding images that appear to show majestic fuchsia-pink flames bursting forth from behind the solar eclipse.

Snapper Keegan Barber captured the total eclipse as the moon blocked out the sun and plunged Dallas, Texas into darkness on April 8, 2024. 

The photos show massive pink spires of plasma pulsing out from the surface of the sun into its second atmosphere, the chromosphere, and the outermost solar corona.

These planet-sized pink flames are called 'solar prominences' — loops of anchored plasma, or superheated, electrically charged gas — that can last for months at a time on the sun's surface. 

Both the sun's outer dimmer layers, chromosphere and corona, where these solar prominences flow are normally drowned out by the full power of the sun's brightness but were visible to pro and amateur astronomers alike during last week's eclipse.

NASA photographer Keegan Barber captured several bright pink 'solar prominences' during the eclipse as the sun hung nearly 93 million miles above Dallas, Texas on April 8, 2024 (above)

A solar prominence differs from a flare in that these loops of anchored plasma, or superheated, electrically charged gas, can last for months at a time on the sun's surface

Solar prominences are also gigantic and can be ten times the diameter of planet Earth or more

Barber, who also works as a NASA photo researcher, was able to grab multiple high resolution snaps of the solar prominences, unusually visible thanks to the moon, which had eclipsed everything but the sun's white corona and pink chromosphere.

But even casual onlookers watching the eclipse from safely behind their eclipse glasses and photographing the event with nothing more special than a phone camera could catch peeks at the pinkish-red spires.

'I don't know what these red things actually are, but they were visible to the naked eye,' one Reddit user posted to the r/space subreddit, 'and they show up quite clearly on camera.'

The solar prominence derives its pinkish-reddish hue from the the transformation of the sun's hydrogen gas into a plasma, because elemental hydrogen emits reddish light when heated to high temperatures. 

The heating of various different chemical elements has long been known to produce specific colors, a scientific fact employed in the fireworks industry, in fact:  

Copper metal in fireworks for example lead to blazes of blue light, while barium is known to produce bright greens and sodium erupts in vivid yellows.

The NASA photo researcher took multiple high resolution snaps of these solar prominences, unusually visible thanks to the moon, which had eclipsed everything but the sun's white corona and its reddish-pink chromosphere

One Reddit poster did some 'back of the envelope' calculations, based on the diameter of the sun, to find that this solar prominence was about five-times the length of Earth. 'That prominence on the bottom is around 17.5 pixels tall,' they said, or 'a height of 44,500 miles'

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A sunspot called AR3590 has already emitted three solar flares - fast eruptions of intense high-energy radiation - towards Earth, but there could be more to come. That's because AR3590 is now pointed directly at our planet. Sunspots are cooler parts of the Sun's surface caused by massive changes in the Sun's magnetic field. They appear dark because they are cooler than other parts of the sun's surface. The temperature of a sunspot is still very hot though - around 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The arced and pointed shapes of each prominence derives from the magnetic fields surrounding them which trap the flow of the electrically charged hydrogen plasma inside it, like a flow of metallic balls in a magnetic tube. 

Over the course of their first day or so of existence, a solar prominence starts out as a smaller loop closer to the sun's surface, expanding or unfurling like a loose look of thread on a sweater, extending out further into the sun's upper atmosphere. 

A giant nuclear fusion reaction bound in space by its own gravity, the sun is predominantly made of plasma, which is an electrified gas of electrons and ions.

The electrified flow of that plasma, according to astronomers, is what leads to the powerful magnified pulses that occasionally eject from the sun.

When the magnetic loops are released into space, huge streams of plasma are attracted to fill them that results in prominences that can last for weeks or months.

While the brilliant arches of these solar prominences often will collapse, or 'drain' gas down through their magnetic field lines back toward the the sun, there are instances when they become unstable and their energy is released into space.

'At the time of the eclipse, the Sun was near a solar maximum, a period of heightened activity that occurs about every 11 years when the Sun’s magnetic field flips,' NASA's geophysics writer  Lindsey Doermann said. 

'The Sun’s activity was much different during the 2017 total solar eclipse,' she noted. 'At that time, it was nearing a solar minimum.' 

Images taken during the 2017 eclipse, during a period of less intense solar energy and solar activity during that low cyclical ebb, showed less tangles and less streams of magnetic, plasma eruptions from the sun. 

'Streamers,' like these solar prominences, Doermann said, 'were restricted to the Sun’s equatorial region' in 2017.