Solar flares, or coronal mass ejections (CMEs) belch huge clouds of superheated particles from the sun's corona - the wispy, outermost and hottest layer - and can reach speeds exceeding one million miles per hour.
The CME, captured on May 9, 2014, was the first seen by Nasa's new Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS.
To capture the phenomenon, the IRIS must be pointed at the sun a day ahead of time and involves a degree of luck, according to Nasa.
The field of view seen in the footage is about five Earth's wide and about seven and a half Earth's tall, according to Nasa.
IRIS was launched last summer and it is managed by the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California.