Snap! Partial Lift-off A portion of an extremely long filament (over 1,000,000 km) that was stretched across much of the face of the Sun gracefully erupted into space ( Nov. 14, 2011). Filaments are cooler gas structures that are tethered to the Sun by magnetic forces. About the upper third of this filament rose up and broke away, but the other two-thirds still remains in sight. The images were taken in extreme ultraviolet light. The video clips covers about 12 hours of activity.