HUGE FARSIDE EXPLOSION: Something just exploded on the farside of the sun–and it was big. NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft recorded a magnificent coronal mass ejection (CME) emerging during the late hours of Feb. 15th:
This CME will not hit Earth; it is moving away from, not toward our planet. However, if such a CME did strike, it could produce a very strong geomagnetic storm. We may have dodged a bullet.
STEREO-A also observed a plume of plasma shooting up from the blast site. It was more than 400,000 km long. See the image.
What caused this explosion? Helioseismology offers a clue. By analyzing vibrations on the surface of the sun, researchers can make crude maps of the sun's farside. The latest farside image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory reveals a huge active region:
The black blob in the map above is almost certainly a sunspot group. It is the prime suspect for the Feb. 15th explosion.
"This is only the second farside active region of this size since September 2017," notes Junwei Zhao of Stanford University's helioseismology group. "If this region remains huge as it rotates to the Earth-facing side of the sun, it could give us some exciting flares."
Based on its current location, the farside sunspot could emerge into view over the sun's northeastern limb 4 to 5 days from now.
https://spaceweather.com/