magnetic reconnection

These images from February 24, 2014, show the first moments of an X-class flare in different wavelengths of light – seen as the bright spot that appears on the left limb of the Sun. Hot solar material can be seen hovering above the active region in the sun's atmosphere, the corona. The images were captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Caption and credit: gsfc/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

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