SDO Observes a Coronal Mass Ejection
Image unavailable
June 24, 2026
The universe is brighter with you in it. Happy birthday.
Birthday · June 24, 2026
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
This archive entry has no available still image to save. Choose a still from another year below, or open the original APOD.
Use a still image from another year
Your celebration date stays the same. Each image keeps its actual publication date.
Date & occasion, no name
Change the year
Selected image source ↗ APOD published June 24, 2026. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Read the original APOD for the astronomer’s explanation and full image credits. Its text is preserved in the archive as published.
Read the archived explanation
Why does the Sun throw stuff at us? The Sun’s surface is a churning soup of energetic electrons and ions called plasma. The motion of those charged particles creates magnetic field loops that are larger than the Earth. These loops twist, turn, and trap plasma. The featured time-lapse, taken over 2 hours on April 24th, 2026 by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows what happens when those magnetic fields become too stressed: they snap and expel billions of tons (trillions of kilograms) of plasma into space at millions of miles (or kilometers) per hour in what is called a coronal mass ejection (CME). The Sun releases a few CMEs each day when it is at the peak of its activity cycle, which passed in 2025. Some of these eruptions hit Earth and can disrupt power grids, disable satellites, and endanger astronauts, which is why space weather monitoring is so important.
Watch the original video
Explore June 24 in other years · 32 APOD entries, 1995–2026
Updated · APOD entries through