Scientists recently released rare footage of this solar event, called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, which is the eruption of a mass of super hot gas (plasma). “It’s like scooping up a piece of the sun and ejecting it into space,” Mark Miesch, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, told Mashable earlier this year.

This CME occurred in September 2022, and was “one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever recorded,” NASA explained. Fortunately, the space agency’s Parker Solar Probe, fitted with a robust heat shield, is designed to withstand such intense bursts of radiation. The pioneering probe is closely investigating the behavior of the sun.