Space photo of the week: NASA spots enormous pink 'flames' during total solar eclipse. What are they?

Why it's so special: On April 8, Earth, the moon and the sun aligned to produce a rare total solar eclipse over North America, plunging parts of Mexico, Canada and 15 U.S. states into surreal daytime darkness.

In this surprisingly colorful image, NASA photographer Keegan Barber captured the view of totality — the moment when the moon fully covered the sun's bright face, revealing its elusive outer atmosphere — as seen over Texas.

Behind the black disk of the moon, the two outermost layers of the sun's atmosphere stab into the darkness: the white corona and the reddish-pink chromosphere.

But they are an equally impressive phenomenon, known as solar prominences — large, often looping towers of plasma that leap out of the sun's surface and stand anchored there for weeks or months at a time, according to NASA.

Prominences showing their faces in the afternoon are just one of the many beautiful and elusive phenomena visible during a total solar eclipse.

His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, CBS.com, the Richard Dawkins Foundation website and other outlets.