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 small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology. Reaction Engines Ltd believes its Sabre engine, which would operate like a jet engine in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, could displace rockets for space access and transform air travel by bringing any destination on Earth to no more than four hours away”. – Chris Wickham via Reuters. Photo: Artist's impression of Skylon. (Photo by Reaction Engines Ltd)

Mount Sinabung is seen during an eruption from Surbakti village in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, April 20, 2015. The local government is preparing the relocation of residents from three of the villages that were destroyed. (Photo by Tibta Pangin/Getty Images/Anadolu Agency)

A newly born female White Rhino runs alongside her mother in Ramat Gan Safari Park near Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 3, 2014. She was born three weeks ago, after more than twenty years without a female White Rhino birth in the Safari, Sagit Horowitz, the safari spokeswoman said. (Photo by Ariel Schalit/AP Photo)

British troops covered in flames from a petrol bomb thrown during a violent protest by job seekers, who say they were promised employment in the security services, in the southern Iraq city of Basra, March 22, 2004. (Photo by Atef Hassan/Reuters)

Twenty-year-old women draped in traditional kimonos gather for their “Coming-of-Age Day” ceremony at the Tokyo Disneyland in Urayasu, eastern suburb of Tokyo on January 13, 2020. (Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP Photo)

A British RAF Typhoon aircraft escorts a C130 transport plane on its way to Jordan for an airdrop of paratroopers from the U.K.'s 16th Air Assault Brigade as part of an exercise conducted jointly with Jordanian soldiers on Wednesday, June 23, 2021. (Photo by Petros Karadjias/AP Photo)

A young Chinese girl kicks during a kung-fu class at Ritan Park on June 11, 2016 in Beijing, China. Ritan, meaning “sun altar”, is among the oldest parks in Beijing, built in the early 1500s during the Ming dynasty for the emperor to make sacrifices to the sun. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)