A solar flare is a relatively rare violent explosion:
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<<A solar flare is a violent explosion in a star's (like the Sun's) atmosphere releasing up to a total energy of 6 × 10^25 Joules.
The frequency of occurrence of solar flares varies, from several per day when the Sun is particularly "active" to less than one each week when the Sun is "quiet". Large flares are less frequent than smaller ones. Solar activity varies with an 11-year cycle (the solar cycle). At the peak of the cycle there are typically more sunspots on the Sun, and hence more solar flares.>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare
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What you see are spicules & prominences:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051126.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061110.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040802.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040611.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080206.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070206.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041206.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020321.html
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Spicule (solar physics)
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<<In solar physics, a spicule is a dynamic jet of about 500km diameter on the Sun. It moves upwards at about 20 km/s from the photosphere. They were discovered in 1877 by Father Angelo Secchi of the Vatican Observatory in Rome. The chromosphere is entirely composed of spicules.
Spicules live for about 5-10 minutes; at the solar limb they appear elongated (if seen on the disk, they are known as "mottles" or "fibrils"). They are usually associated with regions of high magnetic flux; their mass flux is about 100 times that of the solar wind.
At any one time there are around 100,000 active spicules on the Sun; an individual spicule typically reaches 3,000-10,000 km altitude above the photosphere.>>
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_filament
<<A prominence is a large bright feature extending outward from the Sun's surface, often in a loop configuration. Prominences are anchored to the Sun's surface in the Mesosphere, and extend outwards into the Sun's troposphere. While the troposphere consists of extremely hot ionized gases, known as plasma, which do not emit much visible light, prominences contain much cooler plasma, similar in composition to that of the chromosphere. A prominence forms over timescales of about a day, and stable prominences may persist in the corona for several months. Some prominences break apart and give rise to coronal mass ejections.
A typical prominence extends over many thousands of kilometres; the largest observed by SOHO was seen in 1997 and was some 350,000 km (216,000 miles) long - some 28 times the diameter of the Earth. The mass contained within a prominence is typically of the order of 100 billion tonnes of material.
If a prominence occurs on the disc of the sun it appears darker than its background (due to the lower temperature of the plasma). These are referred to as solar filaments.>>