M6.5 solar flare, Earth-bound CME and a particle storm!
AR11719 produced the largest flare of the year, an M6.5, peaking in GOES X-ray at 7:16 UT on April 11. First, we have a snapshot of the flare from the SDO/AIA 171 and 131 angstrom cameras. This shows us solar flare plasma from about 600,000 Kelvin up to around 20 million Kelvin.
Next is a look at the CME from the SOHO/LASCO C3 coronagraph. There is a faint ring in the image from the CME. We call this a Halo CME. The quickly indicates that it is headed toward or away from Earth but the addition SDO data and the protons on the image show us it is headed towards us.
The CME should reach Earth around 6 UT (2 EDT), April 13, 2013, according to NASA’s Space Weather Research Center CME model. The error on this time is plus or minus 7 hours. It left the sun at a speed of around 1000 km/s or ~2.2 million mph. An moderate geomagnetic storm at the most is expected.
(Click to see the animated gif)
