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This paper describes Skylab/ATM observations of the events associated with a disappearing filament near the center of the solar disk on January 18, 1974. As the filament disappeared, the nearby coronal plasma was heated to a temperature in excess of 6 • 106K. A change in the pattern of coronal emission occurred during the 1 89 hr period that the soft X-ray flux was increasing. This change seemed to consist of the formation and apparent expansion of a loop-like coronal structure which remained visible until its passage around the west limb several days later. The time history of the X-ray and microwave radio flux displayed the well-known gradual-rise-and-faU (GRF) signature, suggesting that this January 18 event may have properties characteristic of a wide class of X-ray and radio events.In pursuit of this idea, we examined other spatially-resolved Skylab/ATM observations of longduration X-ray events to see what characteristics they may have in common. Nineteen similar longlived SOLRAD X-ray events having either the GRF or 'post-burst' radio classification occurred during the nine-month Skylab mission. Sixteen of these occurred during HAO/ATM coronagraph observations, and 7 of these 16 events occurred during observations with both the NRL/ATM slitless spectrograph and the MSFC-A/ATM X-ray telescope. The tabulation of these events suggests that all long-lived SOLRAD X-ray bursts involve transients in the outer corona and that at least two-thirds of the bursts involve either the eruption or major activation of a prominence. Also, these observations indicate that long-lived SOLRAD events are characterized by the appearance of new loops of emission in the lower corona during the declining phase of the X-ray emission. However, sometimes these loops disappear after the X-ray event (like the post-flare loops associated with a 'sporadic coronal condensation'), and sometimes the loops remain indefinitely (like the emission from a 'permanent coronal condensation').

Spectroheliograms obtained with the Naval Research Laboratory's Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph (S082A) on Skylab are compared with Kitt Peak National Observatory magnetograms. A principal result is the characteristic reconnection of flux from an emerging bipolar magnetic region to previously existing flux in its vicinity. Examples of the disappearance of magnetic flux from the solar atmosphere are also shown. The results of a particularly simple, potential field calculation are shown for comparison with the Skylab observations.

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