Ok it’s not fire, it’s plasma, but it’s nevertheless a wonderful image by space photographer Alan Friedman showing a coronal ejection towering over 200,000 miles above the surface of the sun. It was taken on July 27, 2010.

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occur when particularly large magnetic loops filled with plasma “snap” and expel their contents into space.

This image was featured on the front page of spaceweather.com on July 29…see lots more on Alan’s website here. (And be sure to check out this equally awesome shot of a giant sunpot scarring the entire disc of the sun!)

Image © Alan Freidman. All rights reserved.