Huge nuke in the sky
Our Sun as you probably know is a huge ball of plasma surrounding a massive thermonuclear chain reaction. The mass of the whole thing prevents the inner nuke blast from sending most of the "stuff" flying around. The "stuff" is kept there by the gravitational field of the Sun but the insane amount of energy released by the inner core also keeps the outer plasma in constant convection, a bit like how a stove can bring water to a steady boil. Once in a while, a big bubble comes to the surface and launch a big chunk of matter into space. Scientists like to give funny names to huge bubbles of plasma so they call the phenomenon a coronal mass ejection.
Just as if the idea of a giant nuke bringing an colossal amount of plasma to a violent boil and sending matter into space wasn't fascinating enough, SOHO is filming the whole thing for our viewing pleasure. The last week offered a few really brutal coronal mass ejections and SOHO features a breath taking movie of them. Keep in mind that the sun is only the tiny white circle in the middle the video. Earth is nothing compared to those ferocious solar events. Such display of pure power has to fill us with humility. The active region is expected to face us at about the same time as the peek of the Perseid meteor shower which would give us quite a night show and hopefully more of those excellent solar flare movies.