M2.4 coronal mass ejection

Tuesday, 10 February 2015 12:44 UTC

M2.4 coronal mass ejection

SOHO/LASCO coronagraph imagery is now complete and this gives us the opportunity to analyse the coronal mass ejection which was released during yesterday's M2.4 solar flare. Our first reaction was that this coronal mass ejection is unlikely to affect Earth as sunspot region 2282 was close to the east limb at the time of the eruption. Now that we have enough coronagraph imagery, we are pleasantly surprised that we have to adjust our opinion.

Images: SOHO/LASCO C2 (left) and C3 (right) animations showing the M2.4 coronal mass ejection. 

The coronal mass ejection is as expected mainly propagating to the east with an estimated velocity just over 1000 km/s. However, a faint full halo outline can be seen meaning that there is likely an earth-directed component. A strong impact is unlikely but a shock passage could arrive at Earth late on 12 February or early on 13 February. Active geomagnetic conditions are possible with a slight chance for a minor G1 geomagnetic storm when the cloud arrives.

For more news regarding the M2.4 solar flare and the DSCOVR mission please read this article which we published earlier today.

Any mentioned solar flare in this article has a scaling factor applied by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the reported solar flares are 42% smaller than for the science quality data. The scaling factor has been removed from our archived solar flare data to reflect the true physical units.

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