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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

🌌 NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

A Solar Corona Ejection Credit:

Date: 1996-11-08

A Solar Corona Ejection
Credit:

View HD Image

Explanation:

The Sun would
not be a nice place to spend the summer. One reason, besides the
extreme heat, is that explosions are common there.
In the above picture, magnetic fields
buckle releasing previously constrained hot material from the
upper atmosphere of the Sun. As a
result, hot gas streams out into the Solar System,
impacting planets, moons, spacecraft,
and making space a dangerous place for astronauts.
Known as coronal mass ejections
(CMEs), billions of tons of scathing plasma
can be accelerated to millions of miles per hour. CMEs
are more common but less intense than solar flares.