Yesterday’s images of the Sun revealed that something was missing compared to two days before, when I had last observed. A large filament of suspended solar hydrogen (see arrows upper left image) over 200 thousand miles long had vanished by the time I took yesterday’s photo as seen on the upper right. Where’d it go? The answer is: “Here it comes!” A piece of the Sun is actually heading our way at speeds around 200 miles per second.
The Active Region 3429 has been flaring, and yesterday morning around 05:30 universal time, it flared with enough energy to fling the filament of matter into space causing what is called a coronal mass ejection (CME). The lower image shows that it is headed towards us producing what is known as a halo CME. The margins of the halo are indicated by the white arrows in the lower image.
Since the satellite that took that image is between us and the Sun, the ever-enlarging halo means that part of the material ejected is going to strike and distort earth’s magnetic fields. That may produce some increase in northern light activity that could be visible from the northern continental US, and may affect some radio comunications. Otherwise this one is not expected to have much effect on earth, but in the past more powerful CME’s have had serious effects on the satellites and on the power grid. This why we keep watching in hopes of getting some prior warning if and when another “big one” is on its way.
#coronalmassejection #solarfilament #northernlights #solarflare
Eskildoodle Photos and Feelings 