NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a satellite launched in February 2010 and weighing nearly 7,000 pounds, watches the sun and collects data on it 24 hours a day.

On September 30, the SDO captured beautiful images of a filament nearly one million miles in length suspended over the front side of the sun. According to NASA, filaments are clouds of solar material suspended over the sun by magnetic forces, and though inherently unstable, they can last for days or even weeks.

This filament, if straightened out, would almost stretch across the whole sun, making it roughly 100 times the size of Earth. The SDO has been observing the filament for several days and has captured images in numerous wavelengths.

Each wavelength helps to emphasize material of different temperatures, helping scientists to learn more about what causes these structures and what may be responsible for their occasional massive eruptions into space.

The images that were captured in extreme Ultra Violet light show the filament as a dark, snaking line hovering above the sun’s surface.

Filaments are a rather common occurrence on the surface of the sun and the SDO typically observes several each year. Last year around this same time, the satellite captured spectacular images from the eruption of a smaller filament:

sun’s atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion. In reality, the sun is not made of fire, but of something called plasma: particles so hot that their electrons have boiled off, creating a charged gas that is interwoven with magnetic fields,” the agency said.