A solar flare to dwarf the Earth

On Sunday, a sunspot labeled AR1593 unleashed an impressive eruption on the surface of the sun that highlights the massive scale of the universe. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a glowing light bulb-like billowing tower of plasma that was more than 100,000 miles across.

To put the size of this eruption in perspective, the circumference of the Earth at the equator is 25,000 miles, and if you dug a tunnel at the equator that went straight down through the center of the Earth, the tunnel would be just around 8,000 miles long.