Spectacular Eruption - Solar Event News Archives 2010-2017

On June 7, 2011 the Sun unleashed an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare (white flash in the first image) with a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME, which is the darker material).

The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area almost half the solar surface. SDO captured just 30 minutes of activity to give a sense of the event's progression in stages.

SDO recorded these images in extreme ultraviolet light that show a very large eruption of cool gas. It is somewhat unique because at many places in the eruption there seems to be even cooler material -- at temperatures less than 80,000 K.

Prominence Eruption

Earth Sun size comparison

The Earth is superimposed on a solar eruptive prominence as seen in extreme UV light (March 30, 2010) to give a sense of how large these eruptions are.

Clips, images credit: NASA/SDO