VLADIVOSTOK, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Russian scientists reported a rare phenomenon involving a black emission of plasma observed on the Sun, the Laboratory of Solar Astronomy at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences announced on its website on Wednesday.
"A very rare, beautiful and even slightly eerie phenomenon occurred today on our star. Right in the center of the visible disk, a ghostly structure of a distinctly black color formed, and then was partially ejected into space, and partially dissipated in the corona," it said.
According to scientists, the black color is typically caused by neutral hydrogen, which has the ability to almost completely absorb incoming radiation with short wavelengths from behind.
"The eruption released and scattered a cold prominence rich in neutral hydrogen throughout the corona. Eventually, the prominence material was entirely destroyed and disappeared. However, for about three hours, the coronal plasma cloud remained visible, moving along magnetic lines before dissipating," it explained. ■