The Sun’s surface is always erupting
© NASA
Words by Chelsea Gohd An explosion on the Sun is helping uncover new information about what causes powerful solar eruptions. In March 2016, scientists used NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a joint mission of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), to observe an explosion on the Sun. The event showed characteristics of three different types of solar eruptions that usually happen separately, but occurred together this time. “This event is a missing link where we can see all of these aspects of different types of eruptions in one neat little package,” said Emily Mason, a solar scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.