This solar flare was recorded on July 19, 2012. The color has been added because otherwise we could look at it -you know what they say about looking at the sun. Dr. Phil Plait tells us what's going on here.
What you’re seeing is the profound impact of magnetism on the material in the Sun. I’ve described this effect before (with lots of juicy details here), but in a nutshell: The gas inside the Sun is so hot it’s ionized, stripped of electrons. When that happens it’s more beholden to magnetism than gravity, and when the magnetic field lines pierce the Sun’s surface they form loops along which the ionized gas (called plasma) flows along them.
The total time represented by the video is 21 hours. The flare, though small against surface of the sun, is many times bigger than the earth. Read more about it at Bad Astronomy. Link