Huge explosions can be seen during the total solar eclipse on April 8

When the Moon completely covers the Sun on April 8, viewers will get a rare glimpse of the Sun's corona and everything that explodes from there.

If you're in the path of the April 8 total solar eclipse, you'll have a brief period of darkness for a few seconds or minutes. This is the only safe time to look directly at the Sun without eclipse glasses.

If you look at the Sun's corona during a total solar eclipse, you can see dark pink towers and rings of charged plasma extending many times Earth's diameter into space. During the most recent total solar eclipse in Australia on April 20, 2023, these "highlights" were spectacular and vast.

A massive coronal mass ejection blasts more than billion tons of matter into space. (Photo: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center).

These highlights will almost certainly appear during the total solar eclipse in North America on April 8, as the Sun is likely to be at the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, known as the pole. Great Sun.

Coronal mass magnification

One visible phenomenon is the coronal mass ejection (CME). Ryan French, solar physicist at the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado, USA, and author of the book 'If We're Lucky, CMEs Will Appear as Spiral Structures, Like like the Sun, which is high in the atmosphere ', said: 'A CME is an ejection of extremely large magnetic fields and plasma masses from the Sun's halo. It moved quickly but appeared to be stationary for several hours.'

CME appears as a spiral in the Sun's corona, frequency: several times a month, duration: several hours. Previous sightings: 1860 and 2020

It will take 100 minutes for the Moon's shadow to pass over North America, so the CME could explode right before that and be visible to everyone under clear skies.

Solar radiation

Solar storms are powerful bursts of radio waves, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays on the surface of the Sun that travel at the speed of light and take just 8 minutes to reach Earth.

Although three solar flares reaching magnitude

Sunlight is different from a CME – it lies much lower in the Sun's atmosphere, closer to the edge of the Moon, and is only visible for a few minutes. They can be seen as red rings closer to the Sun's surface.

However, the timing and location of the solar flare and CME will be just right. 'To be visible from Earth, it is necessary to be above the edge of the Sun - so as not to be blocked by the Moon - during the few minutes of the eclipse,' French said .

Huge eruptions

Physicist Ryan French added: 'We will see highlights during the total solar eclipse on April 8. Prominences come in various sizes and are more common during solar maximum. Sometimes prominences erupt, break away from the Sun's surface, and extend into the Solar System'.

It would be a spectacular sight, but what eclipse chasers really want to see are "giant eruption" prominences - preferably detached from the Sun's surface and floating freely in the corona.

Red halos

During a total solar eclipse, we can see red halos and red towers stretching from the Sun's surface to the halo.

'It should be noted, the eclipse will still provide views of fixed, non-erupting prominences,' French said . They will just be smaller and closer to the Sun's surface than when they were erupting.'

These events were very short-lived. If you want to see it clearly, you can board a supersonic jet and chase the shadow of the Moon. Scientists did this in 1973 using the Concorde aircraft, achieving a total time of 73 minutes.