C2 flare in Active Region 10871

On April 11, 2006, TRACE observed a C2 flare in Active Region 10871. This image, taken at 18:22UT in the 171Å channel, shows the flare in progress. South of the center of the image is an arced bright flare 'ribbon'; the brightest, southernmost extension of it coincides with a small, unstable filament that is visible in the images following this one. The matching second flare ribbon is much weaker, and placed highly asymmetrically relative to the filament, seen to the left/west of the brighter ribbon. That ribbon moves rapidly over weaker field, in parts revealing structures like fibrils commonly seen in Halpha images. Image courtesy of Dawn Myers, GSFC.

The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer is a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) mission to image the solar corona and transition region at high angular and temporal resolution.