The sun featured a powerful storm featuring waves of plasma and charged particles into space called coronal mass ejection (CME). NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft captured the moments as it was getting hit by the effects.
The CME's speed can travel between 1,900 and 2,200 miles per second, according to Space.com. The latest CME is recorded as one of the fastest caught by any spacecraft.
NASA's solar scientist C. Alex Young said "without question" it was one of the top five CME's ever measured.
"Seeing a CME this fast, really is so unusual. And now we have this great chance to study this powerful space weather, to better understand what causes these great explosions, and to improve our models to incorporate what happens during events as rare as these," said fellow space scientist Rebekah Evans.
The STEREO's mission, launched back in 2006, includes the ability to see the entire surface of the sun, meaning another CME is inevitable. (Click here for STEREO's images).
The latest CME occurred on July 23, and it poses no threat to Earth.
The location of the CME came from a region NASA scientists have been observing recently due to an increase of solar flares. The region has been called AR 1520. Evans noted that some of the solar flares have been directed towards Earth.
She said, "So even though the region had released multiple CMEs and even had an X-class flare, its strength kept increasing over time to eventually produce this giant explosion. To try to understand how that change happens makes for very exciting research."
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