ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Solar prominence

Okay kiddo, let me explain what a solar prominence is. You know that giant ball of hot gas in the sky called the sun? Well, sometimes it does something really cool. It shoots out big streams of gas and charged particles into space. These streams are called solar prominences.

Imagine that you have a balloon filled with air. Now, if you squeeze the balloon really hard, the air inside will come out from the sides. The same thing happens with the sun. Sometimes, magnetic fields inside the sun squeeze the gas, and the gas needs to escape, so it shoots out in the form of a solar prominence.

These prominences can be very, very big. They can reach lengths of up to 800,000 miles (1.3 million kilometers)! That's longer than the distance between the Earth and the Moon. But don't worry, because they're really far away from us, we're safe.

Scientists study solar prominences to learn more about the sun and its magnetic fields. They use special telescopes to observe them, and they can even see the gas moving and changing over time. It's pretty cool, don't you think?
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