'Graceful Eruption' on Sun Revealed in Stunning Photo

A NASA spacecraft that constantly watches the sun has captured an amazing view of a solar eruption that exploded from the star's surface this month.
The new image, which NASA featured as its image of the day today (March 28), shows the solar prominence — a delicate combination of super-hot plasma and magnetic fields — just after it snapped, sending plumes of material out into space.
NASA scientists dubbed the sun storm a "Graceful Eruption." It occurred on March 16 and was captured by the space agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which records spectacular views of the sun in high definition.
"A solar prominence began to bow out and broke apart in a graceful, floating style in a little less than four hours," NASA officials explained in an image description. "The sequence was captured in extreme ultraviolet light. A large cloud of particles appeared to hover further out above the surface before it faded away."
The SDO spacecraft also captured a dazzling video of the graceful solar eruption.
The sun is currently in an active phase of its 11-year solar cycle and is expected to reach peak activity this year. The current solar weather cycle is known as Solar Cycle 24.
NASA's SDO spacecraft is one of several observatories that monitor the sun's activity and solar weather events.
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Tariq is the award-winning Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001. He covers human spaceflight, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. He's a recipient of the 2022 Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting and the 2025 Space Pioneer Award from the National Space Society. He is an Eagle Scout and Space Camp alum with journalism degrees from the USC and NYU. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik.