<p>NASA image acquired August 1, 2010
</p><p>Caption: On August 1st, almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun erupted in a tumult of activity. There was a C3-class solar flare, a solar tsunami, multiple filaments of magnetism lifting off the stellar surface, large-scale shaking of the solar corona, radio bursts, a coronal mass ejection and more. This extreme ultraviolet snapshot from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the sun's northern hemisphere in mid-eruption. Different colors in the image represent different gas temperatures ranging from ~1 to 2 million degrees K. 
</p><p>Credit: NASA/SDO
</p><p>On August 1st around 0855 UT, the Sun let loose a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was Earth-facing sunspot 1092. C-class solar flares are small (when compared to X- and M-class flares) and usually have few noticeable consequences here on Earth. This flare, however, was accompanied by a very fast coronal mass ejection that appears to be heading in Earth's direction.
</p><p>Coronal mass ejections (or CMEs) are large clouds of charged particles that are ejected from the Sun over the course of several hours and can carry over ten billion tons (10^16 grams) of plasma. They travel away from the Sun at speeds than can exceed several million miles per hour, and can make the 93-million-mile journey to Earth in as little as a day.
</p><p>To read more go to: &lt;a href="<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/sunearthsystem/main/News080210-cme.html">http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/sunearthsystem/main/News080210-cme.html</a>" rel="nofollow"&gt;www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/sunearthsystem/main/News0...&lt;/a&gt;
</p><p>To view a video of this event go to: &lt;a href="<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4860161251">https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4860161251</a>"&gt;www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4860161251&lt;/a&gt;
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2010-08-01 14:17
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4860149819/">Coronal Mass Ejection Headed for Earth?</a>