Watch the Rise and Fall of a Towering Inferno on the Sun

Caught on camera by NASA's

Solar Dynamics Observatory

, a prominence blazes hundreds of thousands of miles out from the Sun's surface (i.e., photosphere) on May 27, 2014. The image above, seen in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, shows a brief snapshot of the event with the column of solar plasma stretching nearly as far as the distance between Earth and the Moon.

Watch a video of the event below:

The video covers a span of about two hours.

Although it might look fiery in these images, a prominence isn't flame -- it's powered by rising

magnetic fields

trapping and carrying the Sun's superheated material up into the corona. And while this may not have been a unique or unusual event -- or even particularly long-lived -- it's still an impressive reminder of the immense scale and energy of our home star!

Credit: NASA/SDO