NASA’s twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories (STEREO) sent back their first images of the sun this week and with them a view into the sun’s mounting activity. One image shows the first coronal mass ejection (CME) observed by STEREO’s Ahead spacecraft, taken December 9. The other two images show the sun’s super-hot atmosphere. They were taken on December 4, the first day of imaging observations for the Ahead spacecraft. The false color images show a number of bright magnetic active regions, including one on the far left edge of the sun which later produced a series of high energy flares and CMEs.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/first_light.html