On August 31, 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth's magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, with a glancing blow. causing aurora to appear on the night of Monday, September 3. 
This is a lighten blended version of the 304 and 171 angstrom wavelengths. Cropped.
<ul><li>NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center</li>
<li>Derivative work including multiple wavelength data blending: <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Julian_Herzog" title="User:Julian Herzog">Julian Herzog</a></li></ul>
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