The team of scientists included SDO’s observations of magnetic fields at the Sun’s surface in powerful models that calculate the magnetic field of the Sun’s corona, or upper atmosphere, and examined how it evolved in the time just before the flare.

NASA’s first mission to provide unprecedented measurements of, and changes in, the temperature and composition of Earth’s upper atmosphere launched at 5:20 p.m. EST Thursday, Jan. 25, from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana.