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)

The Blue Man Group performs on stage during a media preview ahead of their show in Singapore on March 31, 2016. Blue Man Group was started by three friends in New York in 1991 as a way to celebrate the human spirit through music, science, art and theater. (Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP Photo)

A Vietnamese woman, wearing the traditional “ao dai” long dress, poses for photos along peach blossom flowers ahead of the Vietnamese “Tet” (Lunar New Year festival), in a field in Hanoi, Vietnam, February 2, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Kham)

A students with her face smeared in coloured powder, celebrates Holi at a university campus in Chandigarh, India March 23, 2016. (Photo by Ajay Verma/Reuters)

Palestinian children warm themselves by a fire on a stormy day at Shati (beach) refugee camp in Gaza City January 18, 2016. (Photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

An aerial view of the new Panama Canal expansion project on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal during an organized media tour by Italy's Salini Impregilo, one of the main sub contractors of the Panama Canal Expansion project, in Panama City May 11, 2016. The newly expanded Panama Canal will be inaugurated on June 26, 2016. (Photo by Carlos Jasso/Reuters)

Folk artists perform “iron flowers”, a folk art performance of throwing molten iron to create fireworks, in Daying County of Suining City, southwest China's Sichuan Province on January 26, 2023. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A man rides a motorcycle along a street in the snow in Altay, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region, February 9, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)