Bright streamers
LASCO C2 images taken at 23:01 hours UT on 21 Aug 96. In this picture of the normal Kcorona (or electron corona, seen by the eye at eclipses), we see bright streamers on the east (left) limb, which are extensions of the faint, streamlike features seen in the C1 images. On the west (right) limb, the equatorial 'streamer,' quite usual at this time in the sunspot cycle, has brightened suddenly, with outwardgushing plasma, while above the horizontal streamer, a twisted mass of ionized gas, expelled from the lower atmosphere, and contorted by the magnetic fields that hold it together, is seen stretching across the field of view, from somewhere beneath the occulting disk, out to more than three million kilometers above the Sun's visible surface.