A long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the Sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupts out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT on August 31, 2012. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth's magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, causing aurora to appear on the night of September 3, 2012. The image above includes an image of Earth to show the size of the CME compared to the size of Earth. REUTERS/NASA/GSFC/SDO/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS - RTR37IPI