A large CME seen by the LASCO C3 telescope. The CME is a huge explosion of many millions of tonnes of gas, travelling at about a million miles an hour! The white circle in the centre marks the position and size of the Sun. The black circle is the disc of the coronagraph. The time of each image is also shown.

Courtesy of the SOHO-LASCO Consortium: SOHO is an ESA/NASA project of international cooperation.