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Witness a close-up of the sun as you've never seen it.
The twisting tubes, known as spicules, are fiery jets of fast-moving superheated gas that constantly burst from the solar surface.
At around 300 miles in diameter they spurt upwards from the sun at supersonic speeds of 45,000mph.
They can be likened to pipes of gas, each as wide as a small country and as long as half the Earth.
This picture, taken by astronomer Dr. Kevin Reardon, covers just 65,000 square miles.
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