8 stunning images of Sun shared by NASA

This image, taken on June 20, 2013, at 11:15 p.m., shows the intense light of a solar flare on the Sun's left side and a prominence eruption, where solar material bursts through the Sun's atmosphere.

This composite image of the Sun combines high-energy X-ray data from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).

On December 6, 2010, a lengthy solar filament, which had been winding around the Sun, erupted dramatically.

This illustration overlays a depiction of the Sun's magnetic fields on an image taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on March 12, 2016.

On February 24, 2015, the Sun released a coronal mass ejection along with a portion of a solar filament over a span of three hours.

This breathtaking image of the Sun was captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

On May 9, 2016, Mercury passed directly between the Sun and Earth, creating a transit of the Sun. These Mercury transits occur approximately 13 times per century.

Credit: NASA