Double far side eruption

Wednesday, 18 October 2017 13:21 UTC

The coronal mass ejections come from a complex far side event. We are trying to conclude what exactly caused these eruptions but the imagery coming from STEREO Ahead EUVI isn't complete right now. This makes it hard to tell if these solar plasma clouds come from a filament eruption or a solar flare. A filament eruption does seem the most likely culprit at the time of writing.

Today's Type II and IV sweeps were caused by an impressive double far side eruption behind the east limb. The CMEs are not earth-directed. pic.twitter.com/WDTb8HUlDh

— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) October 18, 2017

A large-scale coronal propagating front (LCPF) which is basically a shock wave traveling trough the solar corona, rounded the east limb as seen from earth's point of view and caused the detection of a Type II radio emission and a Type IV radio emission. These were reported by the NOAA SWPC today at 06:10 UTC.

The coronal mass ejections are of course not directed towards earth.