Filament eruption, activity behind the limb

Sunday, 2 November 2014 11:38 UTC

Filament eruption

Yesterday we saw an impressive filament eruption from the Sun's south-eastern quadrant. The event launched a coronal mass ejection and was likely the source of an increase in the high energy protons which did not manage to reach the minor S1 solar radiation storm level.

The event launched a coronal mass ejection and coronagraph imagery from SOHO shows us that the blast is heading well east from Earth but there does seem to be a slightly wider and fainter outline (black outline on the image below) which suggest we might see a minor shock passage at Earth the coming days. The EPAM low energy protons and electrons have also increased since this eruption which could also indicate there might be a minor earth-directed component. We however do not expect a significant impact at Earth should there indeed be a minor earth-directed component.

NOAA's ENLIL model shows that this event will not arrive at Earth but NASA predicts a glancing blow from this event.

Farside blast

This morning we saw a strong shockwave originating from behind the north-east limb. This event was the source of a Type II radio sweep (signature of a shockwave traveling trough the solar corona) as measured here on Earth. This event will not have any effects on Earth of course as the associated coronal mass ejection will not be traveling towards us but it does indicate that there might be an interesting sunspot region hiding just behind the limb. This will be something to look out for in the days ahead.

ALERT: Type II Radio Emission
Begin Time: 2014 Nov 02 0941 UTC
Estimated Velocity: 695 km/s

Images/video: NASA SDO, SIDC, ESA/NASA SOHO.