As our sun heads to its 11 year solar maximum, NASA has captured, during a solar flare, this amazing picture of a giant “solar whip” last week.

A burst of solar material leaps off the left side of the sun in what’s known as a prominence eruption. This image combines three images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on May 3, 2013, at 1:45 pm EDT, just as an M5.7 class solar flare from the same region was subsiding. The images include light from the 131-, 171- and 304-angstrom wavelengths. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA

[Source: dailymail.co.uk | Picture: NASA]