On August 31, 2012, a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. 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 Monday, September 3. (Photo by NASA/GSFC/SDO via The Atlantic)

A woman carrying a bundle on her head wait in line to cross the border into Colombia through the Simon Bolivar bridge in San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela, Sunday, July 17, 2016. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans crossed the border into Colombia on Sunday to hunt for food and medicine that are in short supply at home. It's the second weekend in a row that Venezuela’s government has opened the long-closed border connecting Venezuela to Colombia. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

Olivia Love-Hatlestad of Grayslake, IL., stands during the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center, July 26, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Philadelphia, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Democratic National Convention kicked off July 25. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

A man plays to the cameras as racegoers make their way home at the end of Ladies Day the second day of the Aintree Grand National Festival meeting on April 8, 2016 in Aintree, England. Today is Fabulous Friday and Ladies Day of the three-day meeting of the world famous Grand National Festival where fashion and dressing to impress is as important as the racing. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Bangladeshi Muslim devotees arrive in an over-crowded train to attend the final day of an Islamic congregations' first phase in Tongi, 20 kilometers (13 miles) north of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, January 10, 2016. The second phase of the annual event, one of the world's largest congregations of Muslims is scheduled to begin Friday. (Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP Photo)

Li Tingting, second from right, laughs as she is lifted off the ground by her wife Teresa Xu, right, outside of a beauty salon where the two were preparing for their wedding as clerks from an adjacent shop look on in Beijing, Thursday, July 2, 2015. Li, a 25-year-old prominent women's rights activist who was released from detention in April, held the wedding ceremony with her partner Teresa on Thursday and announced their marriage in an effort to push for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights in China. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

A girl wearing a face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus walks past a display of garments at a market in Bengaluru, India, Saturday, January 9, 2021. India will kick off the coronavirus vaccination drive on Jan. 16 to stem the pandemic in the world's second-most populous country. A Health Ministry statement says that priority will be given to the healthcare workers and the frontline workers, estimated around 30 million. (Photo by Aijaz Rahi/AP Photo)

“The Reward”. “A spot that a friend and I found that takes a bit of effort to get to. Needs the right swell and wind direction to come together for the backwash to really happen. We had been many times with OK results, but this morning everything lined up perfectly and I was rewarded with this split-second moment in time under some amazing morning light”. (Photo by Scott Harrison/2019 UK Surf Photo of the Year)