European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESA

The Sun's idea. Image taken with SOHO’s LASCO 3.
Image credits: SOHO/LASCO (ESA & NASA).

A light bulb-shaped eruption leaps from the Sun and blasts into space in this archival image from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO. (read more)

Source: ESA

A large sunspot region (AR1429) unleashes an X5 class flare.
Image credits: ESA/NASA/SOHO/SDO.

A pair of unusually large solar flares early yesterday generated a Coronal Mass Ejection that will reach Earth around mid-day today. It will likely cause at least a strong geomagnetic storm that could affect satellites in space and trigger auroral displays.(read more)

Source: ESA

Large M8.3-class solar flare seen by ESA/NASA SOHO satellite 23 January.
Image credits: ESA/NASA.

A large solar flare yesterday triggered a coronal mass ejection travelling at 1400 km/s that will reach Earth today. An energetic eruption of this level can disrupt satellites, so operation teams at ESA and other organisations are closely monitoring the storm. (read more)

Source:  arXiv

On November 4, 2010, NASA's EPOXI spacecraft went within 450 miles of Comet Hartley 2.  Designated officially as 103P/Hartley 2, the comet thus became the fifth comet with close-up images.

Hartley 2 is a short period comet that about six and a half years to orbit the Sun and is also a small comet with about 1.5 km in diameter.

But the Solar and Heliospheric Observer (SOHO), better known for its observations of the sun, also observed comet Hartley 2. Together, the two returned data about what appears to be an irregular comet, ejecting  chunks of ice and losing water at a very fast pace.

These findings were described in an article of the June 10, 2011 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Source: SOHO Pick of the Week

The STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft observed as a photogenic, solar prominence erupted and broke out into space over about 18-hour period (May 13, 2011). Prominences, notoriously unstable structures, are cooler clouds of gas that float above the Sun's surface, tethered there by magnetic forces. They often erupt and race into space like this one did. The Sun here is being observed in extreme UV light. (view source)