New video of sun's surface captures eruption bigger than Earth

The European Space Agency has released new video of the sun’s surface in outstanding detail.

A new video of the sun’s surface has captured an eruption bigger than the size of Earth.

The European Space Agency recently shared footage of the sun’s “ever-changing landscape”, which was filmed by its Solar Orbiter in September last year.

It showed golden hair-like structures of gas emerging from inside the sun, which can reach heights of up to 10,000 kilometres.

A small eruption of cooler material rising and then collapsing into the surface was also captured by the instrument.

“Don’t be fooled by the use of ‘small’ here: this eruption is bigger than Earth,” the European Space Agency said.

The bright areas seen in the vision reach about one million degrees celsius, while the dark areas absorb radiation.

The Orbiter made its closest approach to the fiery planet about 43 million kilometres away – about one third of the Earth’s distance from the sun.

At the same time, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe skimmed about 7 million kilometres from the surface of the sun to measure particles and the magnetic field.

“This was a perfect opportunity for the two missions to team up, with ESA-led Solar Orbiter’s remote-sensing instruments observing the source region of the solar wind that would subsequently flow past Parker Solar Probe,” the European Space Agency said.