An active region at the sun's edge produced several M5-class (medium sized) flares over a ten-hour period (Apr. 3, 2017). The most dramatic flare occurs about half way through the video clip, when it shoots up a bright towering plume of plasma. These were the strongest flares of the year so far. Some coronal mass ejections (which hurled clouds of plasma into space) were also associated with some of these flares. The images were taken in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light.

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PIA21584_304flares_profile_big.mp4
PIA21584_304flares_profile_sm.mp4

SDO is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Its Atmosphere Imaging Assembly was built by the Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), Palo Alto, California.