Apr 032011
CME of April 3, 2011
An ongoing coronal mass ejection (CME) has been captured on the COR2 Ahead solar satellite. The CME appears to be even larger than the solar eruption occurring on March 8 that preceded by a few days the magnitude 9.0 Tōhoku, Japan, earthquake and resulting tsunami.
The relative size of the sun is shown as the circle on the occlusion disk at the center of the image.
2 Responses to “Large CME erupts from sun”
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Is the latest CME eruption facing towards Earth? Or does that even matter?
The CME was partially facing earth, but most of the ejected material appeared to be traveling beneath our planet.
If there were to be any consequences from the CME, it would occur from today through tomorrow. There has been an uptake in quakes today, but none are serious so far.
There have been studies that show a correlation between solar flares and CMEs with earthquakes. Anecdotal evidence over the last two years also suggests a possible link between CMEs and earthquakes. Both the Chilean and Japanese earthquakes were preceded by notable CMEs.
Solar flares sometimes precede and perhaps trigger CMEs although this relationship is poorly understood. A flare is possibly less directional than a CME, particularly a flare’s x-ray and gamma ray emmisions.
Incidentally, the Indonesian earthquakes of a couple of days ago would correlate to high-energy proton and electron emissions for a possible flare preceding this CME.