Yesterday’s spectacular eruptive event was just one example of the amazing phenomena on the Sun and the inner heliosphere. Stuff is going on all the time, like this coronal mass ejection seen by the STEREO mission

or this intriguing prominence (the dark wispy shape close to the edge of the Sun’s disk) evolution, spotted just a couple of days ago by the Solar Dynamics Observatory:

We can even sometimes see comets when we look at the Sun:

The 2000th comet seen by the SOHO sun-observing spacecraft.

In fact, the SOHO spacecraft has discovered more comets than any other mission. This particular comet was spotted by an astronomy student, Michal Kusiak of Krakow, Poland.

If you want to know more about the Sun and the inner heliosphere, we suggest going over to The Sun Today. There you can find out more about recent solar events, and what caused them. Got a question about the Sun? Then ask a solar physicist over at the The Sun Today.