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Wow! NASA Video Shows 'Mind-Bogglingly Gorgeous' Solar Eruption

Before we run through the news of the day, let's pause for something spectactular: a new video from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. It shows a "massive filament" eruption on the sun that occurred last Friday. As Britain's The Register says, it is "mind-bogglingly gorgeous."

The eruption apparently stretched out a "half million miles into space," The Register adds. Fortunately, the sun is about 93 million miles from us. And, says NASA, the eruption "did not travel directly toward Earth," though it did give a "glancing blow" to the planet's "magnetic environment" on Monday.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
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