How's this for patriotism? It turns out that the sun had its own celebration with a solar flare that makes that San Diego inferno look like a sparkler, peaking on July 4, because obviously the center of our solar system loves the U.S. of A. "Independence Day Solar Fireworks" is how NASA described the image. They add: 

This image, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows the M5.3 class solar flare that peaked on July 4, 2012, at 5:55 AM EDT. The flare is shown in the 131 Angstrom wavelength, a wavelength that is particularly good for capturing the radiation emitted from flares. The wavelength is typically colorized in teal as shown here

Which is much better than our "oooooh...pretty" assessment. 

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Alexander Abad-Santos