Sun's scary eruption throwing over 1 million km long plasma plume caught on cam; See pics

Veteran astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy is back with another astounding picture that would make you wonder about the sun's massiveness. Taking to his social media handles, the Arizona-based photographer shared the sun's picture that was captured over a six-hour period. McCarthy said that the long trail of plasma plumes released during the recent solar eruption-caused Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) reached over 1.6 million km from the solar surface. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed that the CME in late September was part of a minor G-1 class solar storm which is the lowest on the scale and was released in a direction opposite to the Earth, Live Science reported. 

Scary CME caught on camera

"There it is, folks. The largest solar prominence I've ever seen, followed by a coronal mass ejection as it flung material deep into space", McCarthy captioned his Instagram post. Captured on September 24, the picture was also shared by the photographer on Reddit where he revealed that the plasma was initially contained in a large loop connected to the solar surface (also called the solar prominence) and the loop broke ejecting the plasma at a speed of 1,61,000 km per hour. 

According to McCarthy, the picture above is a false-colour composite time-lapse image that stacks hundreds of thousands of images. The photographer explained that 30 and 80 individual images were captured every second and combined to present the sun in such detail and in bright orange colour. McCarthy, however, said that the image actually came out white and the colour had to be added for a contrast between the sun's features and the plasma plume. 

"We'll see more of these as we head further into solar maximum. The plasma plumes are also likely to get "progressively larger", his post read. He also advised others not to point a telescope toward the sun as it would "fry your camera or worse, your eyes".