Ellerman Bombs at high resolution (1/2)

Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope

The target of these observations was active region 10998, containing a leading sunspot with a rudimentary penumbra and following plages.  The active region was observed on 2008 June 11 using the CRISP instrument at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope on La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain).

Ellerman bombs are brightenings in the H-alpha line that mark magnetic reconnection in the deep solar atmosphere. When viewed from the side away from disk center and at high spatial resolution, Ellerman bombs are flame-like structures that stick out vertically from the inter granular lanes. At high temporal resolution, it is clear that Ellerman Bombs are highly dynamic and show variability on a time scale of seconds.

The image shows the evolution of an Ellerman bomb in a selection of CRISP image cutouts at 1.1 Å from the H-alpha line center. The small subfield contains the most prominent Ellerman bomb at (x, y) = (8, 3). The elapsed time from 07:55 UT is specified in each panel and increases in unequal steps along rows.

Image credit: Hiroko Watanabe (Kyoto University)

Observations:  Luc Rouppe van der Voort, Ada Ortiz, Jorrit Leenaarts, Sven Wedemeyer, Viggo Hansteen (ITA, University of Oslo)

Publication: Watanabe et al., 2011, ApJ, 736, 71

Source of movie: folk.uio.no