This awesome movie taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows an entire hemisphere of the Sun erupting. Magnetic filaments snapped and exploded as shock waves raced across the stellar surface and billion-ton clouds of hot plasma billowed into space. This event shattered astronomers' ideas about solar activity.

"The August 1st event really opened our eyes," says Karel Schrijver. "We see... solar storms... playing out on scales we scarcely imagined before."

Click to play the Solar Dynamics Observatory's extreme ultraviolet movie of the global solar eruption. Different colors represent different plasma temperatures in the range 1.0 to 2.2 million Kelvin.

Dig it. Hooray for the Sun heading back toward peak activity!
Chris