🌞 Powerful Solar Explosion - Another Full Halo CME

 

For the second time in two days, a ful halo CME billowed away from the farside of the sun on July 15th. It wasn't as potent as the first CME (described below), but it signals continued activity from a hidden sunspot group. The active region could turn to face Earth within the next week.

Available coronagraph imagery from STEREO-A COR 2 contains a gap during the event. Despite the suboptimal imagery, there does not appear to be any clear indication of a CME component along the Sun-Earth line.

When space weather forecasters first saw this explosion, there was a moment of excitement. It appeared to be heading directly toward Earth. However, data from NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft indicated otherwise. In fact, the CME was heading directly away from us--a farside event.

Although the explosion occured on the farside of the sun, it still peppered Earth with high-energy particles. The Energetic and Relativistic Nuclei and Electron (ERNE) detector onboard SOHO recorded a surge in hard radiation not long after the CME appeared.

According to scientists, the lift-off of the CME may have created a global shock wave on the farside of the sun. Particles spilling over the edge might have spiraled toward our planet.

The source of the blast might have been the same sunspot (AR2838) that produced the first X-flare of Solar Cycle 25 on July 3rd. That sunspot is currently transiting the farside of the sun approximately where the CME came from. Within the next week AR2838 is expected to return--and then, maybe, the real fun begins.