On February 27 2000, an eruption on the Sun was immediately dubbed the "light bulb" CME by SOHO scientists. It shows the three classical parts of this sort of eruption: leading edge, void, and core. To obtain this image the SOHO satellite uses a device called a Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO). As the name implies, LASCO provides a wide view of the Sun's corona, it's outer atmosphere. The corona is millions of times fainter than the Sun's photosphere and is therefore only seen on Earth during an eclipse when the Moon blocks the photosphere's light. LASCO mimics an eclipse, simply using a disk to block light from the photosphere, allowing the corona to be observed. Click the "Light Bulb" for larger images and movies of this massive eruption on the Sun.

In Nov 2003 - A massive flare erupted on the surface of the Sun, it was so bright that it temporarily blinded the instruments on solar observation satellites. Astronomers believe this was the brightest flare that has ever been seen in modern times. This event created a complete radio blackout of high frequency communications basically anywhere the sun was shinning at that time. It was eventually rated as a massive X45, twice as large as any previously recorded flare. Click the Sun for the background story.

"On July 14 2000 (Bastille Day), the Sun unleashed a monstrous, long-lasting solar flare and with it a potent swarm of solar particles. A full “halo” coronal mass ejection was shot out from the Sun almost simultaneously, escaping the Sun at nearly 1,800 kilometers per second (4 million miles per hour). The X rays and other light from the blast reached the cameras on SOHO and the flare sensors on the GOES weather satellites about 8 minutes later. Within 15 minutes after the flare, a stream of solar particles began bombarding the Earth’s magnetosphere (moving at half the speed of light). Just 36 minutes after the flare, the ACE spacecraft was bombarded with so many particles that it lost its ability to track solar wind density and velocity. Spacecraft cameras trained on the Sun—from SOHO, TRACE, and Yohkoh— and on the auroral zones of Earth—from Polar and IMAGE—were blinded by the swarm of solar particles. One of the radio transmitters on the Wind spacecraft permanently lost about a quarter of its power, forcing controllers to switch to a backup system. After detecting the initial blast from the Sun, the very satellites that were supposed to monitor the incoming space weather were temporarily blinded by it." Excert from "Storms from the Sun: The Emerging Science of Space Weather (2002). Click on the CME animated image for a full report from NASA and further movies of this historic event.

Some 31 hours after the Bastille day flare and the coronal mass ejection from the Sun, the Earth was in the grip of an intense geomagnetic storm. NASA's POLAR satellite false colour images taken at the height of the storm show the intensity of the storm at the Earth's North Pole. Aurora light shows were seen as far south as El Paso, Texas. A Scientific American report called The fury of Space Storms from April 2001 can be found online here .

This "Bastille Day" flare image was taken by NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft on July 14, 2000. In this closeup the area covered is about 186,000 miles across, which is large enough to span 23 Earths. The image is false color and shows radiation emitted by gas at about 2.7 million degrees Centigrade. The image shows a classic "slinky" formation of "magnetic" coils that erupted from the Sun's surface and followed invisible lines of magnetic force in the solar atmosphere.

In November 2002 a comet appeared from nowhere and caused a massive reaction from the Sun. Astronomers were so impressed they called the comet "Neat". Actually, the Sun’s glare had prevented observers on Earth from viewing NEAT’s approach. But the SOHO spacecraft, stationed between Earth and the Sun, has an instrument called a Large-Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO), which blocks the Sun’s brightest light, permitting the satellite to record the comet’s dramatic swing around the Sun. As NEAT raced through the extended solar atmosphere, a large coronal mass ejection (CME) exploded from the Sun and appeared to strike the comet. Click here to get an indepth assessment of this "Neat" event! Click the image to view SOHO animation of this event. Please note this 1.84MB file is slow to load).

In July 26th 2005, a M-Class Solar Flare looked like a lightening bolt! It was recorded as a sharp spike by the GOES X-Ray Flux satellite which provides a direct indication of solar flare activity. Sun watchers described this unusual solar flare prominence as downright scary!

Watch a slideshow of the most spectacular eruptions from the Sun in recent years at the Joyfire Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) Slideshow.

The biggest outburst on the Sun in 30 years took place on 5/6th December 2006, you can find out what happened at the Joyfire webpage Sun Facts. Here, you can find more information and watch the Sun at the Jofire Space Weather Explorer window.