It's called a solar flare, and NASA caught the whole thing on camera.

Solar flares, which are sudden explosions on the sun's surface caused by strong magnetic forces, are of concern to astronomers because these events can impact electrical power grids on Earth, causing regional blackouts.

Around 300 M-class flares occur during each solar cycle, and they're most likely to occur near solar maximum, a point we're steadily approaching, according to Woodroffe.

That forces them to explode into space, revealing a fiery loop on the side of our enormous star, called a solar flare. .

The sun sent out a huge solar flare in August of 2012.

"There is also a potential for solar flares to cluster, meaning the occurrence of one could presage the appearance of more, potentially stronger flares," Woodroffe said

"A coronal mass ejection is, in essence, a little bit of the sun that gets blown off and sent flying into space towards Earth," Woodroffe said. 

"I don't know if there was a coronal mass ejection associated with this flare, but we are expecting the possible arrival of a coronal mass ejection associated with a flare that occurred on Jan