This picture shows a part of the Sun's atmosphere called the corona. The corona is very, very hot - about 1 million degrees! Glowing plasma, which is like magnetized gas, sometimes forms loops in the corona. Magnetic fields around sunspots make these loops. They are called coronal loops. The loops are huge - about 30 Earths would fit across them! A satellite named TRACE took this picture in November 1999.
Image courtesy TRACE/NASA.