Massive Coronal Mass Ejection

On July 23rd, a coronal mass ejection (CME) blasted away from the sun with rare speed: 3400 km/s or 7.6 million mph. CMEs moving this fast occur only once every ~5 to 10 years. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud's rapid departure from the sun:

The source of the CME was sunspot AR1520, which sparked many bright auroras earlier this month when it was on the Earthside of the sun. Now, however, the active region is transiting the sun's farside so this blast was not geoeffective. One can only imagine the geomagnetic storms such a fast CME could produce if it were heading our way.

I can only imagine how a CME of that magnitude would effect te Earth had it been directed at our little planet...



http://www.spaceweather.com/