A dark, elongated filament rose up and broke to the lower left and out from the sun (Apr.9-10, 2017). Filaments are cooler clouds of plasma tethered above the sun's surface by magnetic forces. They are notoriously unstable and tend not to last more than a few days before they collapse into the sun or break away into space. The video, taken in extreme ultraviolet light, covers about nine hours of activity.

Movies
PIA21592_filament_break_left304_big.mp4
PIA21592_filament_break_left304_sm.mp4

SDO is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Its Atmosphere Imaging Assembly was built by the Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), Palo Alto, California.