NASA | Firework Flare

This movie from NASA's SDO shows a solar flare — the bright light on the left side of the sun — on July 8, 2014. An eruption of solar material can also be seen arcing up and away. After it left the sun, this became a coronal mass ejection, a giant cloud of solar material, headed toward Mars. SDO images the sun in select wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light. Each wavelength corresponds to a different temperature material — and different region — of the sun. The wavelengths are measured in Angstroms (Å