Solar Vortex Cavity Events
No conclusions drawn here, but this is definitely worth checking out...
I happened to be watching a solar weather channel today (Feb. 9th 2019) when I noticed something bizarre on the vanishing limb of the Sun:
I thought enough of it that snapped a capture image and posted it (below) on Facebook's Cosmogenesis Group.
I commented on the dark shadow, wondering it it was an artifice of the photo, or an actual event - perhaps a thinning of the solar coronal atmosphere.
Shortly thereafter, member Roger Mascetti posted this reply (below,) a video of the Sun from March 11, 2012:
Thinking there was an outside chance this might have been an overly tampered picture, I looked for another video of the Sun from March 11, 2012 event - and found it (below):
So - not likely to be a forgery.
Then I looked a little further and found a blow-up of the Sun from March 11, 2012 event, and this one showed a blow-up with TWO similar events, although one was very brief (can be seen to the left of the prominent event.)
Looking a little further, I found a paper on the subject, "Coronal Prominence Cavities"
but it did not really cast anymore light on what was going on.
I am intrigued that I never saw or heard of this before. That objects this pronounced appear to be locked onto the sun, then the sudden release, leaves me gobsmacked!
Stephen Goodfellow, Feb. 9th, 2019