NASA imagery captures massive CME

As benign and inactive as the weather pattern has been the last several days in the NYC Area, the sun has been conjuring up some major developments. And it’s acting up again. On Monday a corona mass ejection, otherwise known as a CME, occurred on the edge of the sun. CME’ s are common during the suns more active periods — one of which we are heading into. The more active solar cycle has been underwhelming thus far, but NASA was able to capture Monday’s CME with an incredible high resolution video. Attached below, the video shows the CME erupting off the sun in a rolling wave — shooting billions of tons of particles into space at millions of miles per hour.

When headed towards earth, CME’s produce geomagnetic storms. Depending on the strength of the CME and how much of it affects earth, radio transmissions can be interrupted and satellites can be damaged. In addition, auroras can be seen — with the southward extent from the pole depending on the CME’s strength. Luckily, this CME was not earth-directed. However, NASA maintains that more CME’s may occur in the near future.

For more information on the CME and potential future ejections, we suggest following SpaceWeather.com.