It's back. The famous active region on the Sun that created auroras visible around the Earth earlier this month has survived its rotation around the far side of the Sun -- and returned. Yesterday...

Bright stars of the Pleiades, four planets, and erupting solar plasma are all captured in this spectacular image from the space-based SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). In the foreground of the 15 degree wide field of view, a bubble of hot plasma, called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)

Admire the beauty but fear the beast. The beauty is the aurora overhead, here taking the form of a great green spiral, seen between picturesque clouds with the bright Moon to the side and stars in the background.