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)

An artist's impression of a growing supermassive black hole located in the early Universe is seen in this NASA handout illustration released on June 15, 2011. Using the deepest X-ray image ever taken, astronomers found the first direct evidence that massive black holes were common in the early universe. This discovery from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory shows that very young black holes grew more aggressively than previously thought, in tandem with the growth of their host galaxies. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/Chandra X-Ray Observatory/A.Hobart)

A Naga sadhu, or naked Hindu holy man, performs a ritual inside his tent during Kumbh Mela, or Pitcher festival, at Trimbakeshwar, India, Friday, August 28, 2015. Hindus believe taking a dip in the waters of a holy river during the festival will cleanse them of their sins. The festival is held four times every 12 years. (Photo by Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo)

Tibetan monks dressed as demons attend the Beating Ghost festival at the Yonghe Temple, also known as the Lama Temple, in Beijing on March 19, 2015. The Beating Ghost festival, or Da Gui festival in Chinese, is an important ritual of Tibetan Buddhism and is believed to expel evil spirits and shake off troubles. (Photo by Wang Zhao/AFP Photo)

Contorsionist Rich Miteku performs during the opening of the 41st Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco on January 19, 2017. (Photo by Valery Hache/AFP Photo)

A student from “the cliff village” in Atule'er climbs newly-constructed steel ladders after school to go home for holidays, in Liangshan Sichuan province, China, November 19, 2016. The steel ladders which replaced the unsafe vine ladders shortened the time taken for the children to go home, from three hours to two. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A photo taken on July 22, 2017 shows beach- goers dancing at the West Sea Barrage beach outside the coastal city of Nampo, southwest of Pyongyang. The West Sea Barrage beach features as a stopping point for foreign tourists, and is a destination for North Korean work groups from the neighbouring area. The beach lies at the end of an eight- kilometre- long barrage that separates the sea from the Taedong River, which runs through Pyongyang. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

US President Donald Trump' s daughter and senior White House adviser Ivanka Trump (2nd R) poses for a photo on a balcony of the VIP tent at the Olympic sliding centre with US army luge athletes Taylor Morris (L) and Matt Mortensen (2nd L), and US women’s bobsleigh silver medallist Lauren Gibbs (R) before the ski jump tower at the men' s four- man bobsleigh event of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic games in Pyeongchang on February 25, 2018. (Photo by Eric Gaillard/Reuters)