coronal mass ejections

The Sun Burps Out a Gigantic Rolling Wave

May 1, 2013

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Just in time for May Day, the Sun blasted out a coronal mass ejection (CME) from just around the limb earlier today, May 1, 2013. In a gigantic rolling wave, this CME shot out about a billion tons of particles into [...]

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Sun Unleashes Powerful X-Class Solar Flare

March 5, 2012

The Sun has been quiet recently but early today (04:13 UTC on March 5, 2012) it unleashed a powerful X1-class solar flare and coronal mass ejection. The latest estimates indicate the CME will probably miss Earth, but hit Mercury and Venus. Even so, the science team from the Solar Dynamics Observatory says that high-latitude skywatchers [...]

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Aurora Alert! Sun Sends CME in Earth’s Direction

January 19, 2012

As seen here by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, a long duration M3-class flare began erupting on the Sun from sunspot region 1401 at 13:42 UTC (8:42 AM ET) today, Thursday, January 19, 2012, sending a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly towards Earth. Scientists predict the CME will arrive at around 16:00 UTC on January 21, [...]

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Sun Erupts with Enormous X2 Solar Flare

February 17, 2011

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, [and the Stardust flyby of Comet Tempel 1] the Sun erupted with a massive X-Class flare, the most powerful of all solar events on February 14 at 8:56 p.m. EST . This was the first X-Class flare in Solar Cycle 24 and the most powerful X-ray flare in more [...]

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Venus and Mercury Blasted by Recent Solar Storms

August 18, 2010

Update: Well, it turns out that while it looks like Venus and Mercury are getting pummeled by Coronal Mass Ejections, the geometry might not work out, at least not for every day that is included in the video above. UT reader Steven Janowiecki brought it to my attention that just because Mercury and Venus look [...]

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