NASA shares breathtaking image of solar flare on the sun

The sun is shown in an image from NASA that shows a solar flare. The Instagram post's caption reads, "Sunny, thank you for the sunshine bouquet." Our Sun, the greatest object in our solar system, maintains objects of all sizes in their orbits and has an impact on everything from planets to dust due to its enormous size and magnetic field.

The caption adds, "Large explosions like solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME) occur in the Sun's atmosphere, or corona. In September 2012, a CME that was moving at over 900 miles per second (1,448 kilometers per second) was photographed by the near-Earth Solar Dynamics Observatory. Swirling solar activity can be seen in orange and yellow tones, with a big orange and red jet coming from the bottom left of the image. Yellow fractures that extend into space's void are visible on the Sun's surface.

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Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are substantial clouds of solar plasma with embedded magnetic fields that are sent into space during a solar eruption, according to NASA. CMEs can collide with planetary magnetic fields and can enlarge as they travel through space, sometimes reaching dimensions of millions of miles. When pointed at Earth, a CME can cause geomagnetic disruptions that spark brilliant aurora, disrupt satellites and electricity infrastructure here, and at worst, even put astronauts in orbit in risk.