A filament, which at one point had an eerie similarity to a snake, broke away from the Sun and out into space on Nov. 1, 2014. This video covers just over three hours of activity.
This kind of eruptive event is called a Hyder flare. These are filaments (elongated clouds of gases above the Sun's surface) that erupt and cause a brightening at the Sun's surface, although no active regions are in that area. It did thrust out a cloud of particles but not towards Earth. The images were taken in a wavelength of extreme UV light.
Credit: NASA/SDO