A massive cloud of plasma erupted from the sun on Halloween, briefly creating a massive “canyon of fire” on the sun’s surface that was twice as wide as the contiguous United States and more than seven times taller than the Earth. The vast Valley of Fire is another striking reminder that the sun is rapidly approaching its explosive peak, solar maximum.

In the late hours of October 31, a loop of magnetized plasma in the Sun’s southern hemisphere, known as the solar bulge, grew and became unstable before breaking off and shooting into space like a torn elastic band. As the bulge receded, it left a huge canyon-like hole in the super-hot plasma that forms the Sun’s surface. This “canyon of fire” was about 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) wide and stretched 10 times that far, according to LiveScience’s sister site Space.com.

The crater was about 620 times wider and 224 times taller than the Grand Canyon, and about 50 times wider and 25 times taller than Valles Marineris on Mars, the largest known canyon in the Solar System.

This isn’t the first “canyon of fire” detected on the sun in recent years: A 124,000-mile (200,000 km) long canyon opened up on the sun in April 2022; and in September of that year, after an epic solar flare, an even larger canyon appeared, stretching some 239,000 miles (385,000 km). Both of these canyons were approximately 12,400 miles (20,000 km) deep, approximately 1,800 times deeper than the Mariana Trench.

Clouds of plasma ejected from the Sun to form these canyons may eventually fall on Earth, causing geomagnetic storms and bright auroras. At first, scientists were worried that the bulge from the last explosion might hit our planet. However, later observations showed that it would now miss us completely, according to Spaceweather.com.

The massive solar canyon is the latest sign that we are rapidly approaching solar maximum, an explosive peak in the Sun’s roughly 11-year solar cycle that will likely occur in 2024, a year earlier than first predicted.

On the eve of solar maximum, the Sun’s magnetic field lines begin to interfere with each other. These invisible lines normally keep plasma on the Sun’s surface. But when they become entangled, they become less effective at holding the plasma in place, allowing large ridges and deep valleys to form on the surface.

Weaker surface magnetism has also given rise to a number of other intriguing plasma structures this year, including a giant polar vortex orbiting the sun’s north pole, a 14 Earth-high solar hurricane, and a wild plasma waterfall that pelted the sun with fiery rains.