Our sun keeps flaring and these 2 missions are capturing it all

The sun is getting more active -- and two solar missions are perfectly poised to capture the stellar show.

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency, is gearing up for its closest approach to the sun so far on March 26.

The journey has been anything but boring.

A large solar flare exploded from the sun on March 2. The eruption was rated as M-class, the fourth strongest type of the five categories measuring solar flare intensity. A burst of this strength can cause brief radio blackouts at the poles and minor radiation storms that might endanger astronauts, according to NASA.

The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on the Solar Orbiter captured a video of the dramatic event.