No. 6 - Picked by 19.2% of voters

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This fiery Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) reveals remarkable detail in superheated gas that was hurled into space. CMEs are the material sometimes blown outward during a solar flare. A CME takes anywhere from about 18 hours to three days to arrive at Earth, where it can generate colorful aurora and threaten satellites and power grids. The image was taken by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) C2 camera on Jan. 4, 2002. In coronagraph images like this, direct sunlight is blocked by an occulter, revealing the surrounding faint corona, or solar atmosphere. The approximate size of the Sun itself is represented by the white circle inside the occulted area.