As expected, the sun expelled a mega coronal mass ejection, giving observers one heck of a light show.

On Sunday night at 11:24 p.m. PT, the CME shot out of the sun's northwest limb (around active region 1794) at about 715 miles per second, or about 2,574,000 miles per hour. NASA considers that rate "a fairly fast speed" for this event.

Fortunately, it seems unlikely the CME's countless tons of solar particles will cause any harm to the majority of satellites orbiting Earth, or to electronics on the Blue Marble. NASA says the eruption, located on the far side of the sun, traveled toward Mars. NASA advised that the ejection may pass the agency's Stereo-A solar observing spacecraft, however.