If there was a lot of dust around Earth due to electrical machining then the Sun could have been looked upon.
True, but I doubt any kind of detail could be seen. Even with my filtered solar viewing glasses, which block 99.9% of the light, I can only discern larger sunspots much less other features with hardly any contrast in visible light.
If you stand about 10 or 15 feet away, this is a pretty good representation of what can be seen in visible light with those solar viewing glasses.
There's absolutely no comparison between that and what SDO allows us to see.
I would imagine that looking at the sun through dust thick enough to allow for direct viewing would just look like a translucent disc, much like looking at the sun through fog or overcast skies. Larger sunspots can be seen in recent digital images of the sun when it's right on the horizon and the conditions are right, but they weren't visible to the photographer at the time. Digital cameras on earth and satellites in space can see a lot more detail and subtle contrast than the unaided eye. SDO is designed to provide extraordinary magnified images in wavelengths outside of the visible range so those images show structures and detail that our eyes can't possibly see, filtered or not. What's more likely? Witnessing glow mode discharge columns/filaments between planets in the night sky/intense auroral displays, or seeing those patterns on the sun with the unaided eye. Besides, those filaments are common, this one just happens to be longer than most.
Kiwi...what's
all about? Just because there's a filament doesn't mean it's directing any energy our way. Other than three or four days ago when there was a moderate geomagnetic storm and an M2 flare from the sunspot near the filament, there's only been fairly low activity since then.
Two moderate "eruptions" (double layer field aligned current disruption) on the filament in the past <24 hours have sent nothing our way.
The first eruption:
The filament was not destroyed, nor was material hurled toward Earth.
The most recent:
Instabilities in the filament sparked a C2-class flare and hurled a portion of the filament's own magnetic backbone into space. The blast was not Earth-directed. Remarkably, the structure survived mostly intact and is still visible in backyard optics. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments.
The past week of global >mag4.5 earthquake activity, including the mag5 in Christchurch. Seems to be relatively quiet lately.
What evidence is there that the existence of this filament, or even the recent "eruptions", could be linked to any earthquake somewhere on the planet?
cheers