November 8, 1996
On the day you were born, the universe did what it has always done best: transformed chaos into beauty.
A Solar Corona Ejection Credit:
Birthday · November 8, 1996
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published November 8, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
The Sun would not be a nice place to spend the summer. One reason, besides the extreme heat, is that explosions are common there. In the above picture, magnetic fields buckle releasing previously constrained hot material from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. As a result, hot gas streams out into the Solar System, impacting planets, moons, spacecraft, and making space a dangerous place for astronauts. Known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), billions of tons of scathing plasma can be accelerated to millions of miles per hour. CMEs are more common but less intense than solar flares.