C5 solar flare/filament eruption, earth-directed CME

Sunday, 19 April 2015 14:32 UTC

C5 solar flare/filament eruption, earth-directed CME

The Sun released an asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection yesterday (as seen by SOHO) due to a C5.2 solar flare in combination with a filament eruption near sunspot region 2321.

A slow, faint, asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection raced away from the Sun at a speed of about 400km/s which is only slightly faster than the background solar wind. We expect this coronal mass ejection to arrive at Earth on 22 April with likely no or only a very minimal increase in the solar wind speed. No geomagnetic storming is expected from this event due to the slow speed of the CME but high latitude sky watchers should be alert for possible enhanced auroral displays on 22 and 23 April if the parameters of the IMF are favourable. Kp-values up to 4 (active geomagnetic conditions) are possible.

Images: SOHO/LASCO C2 (left) and C3 (right) coronagraph animations.

Any mentioned solar flare in this article has a scaling factor applied by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the reported solar flares are 42% smaller than for the science quality data. The scaling factor has been removed from our archived solar flare data to reflect the true physical units.

Thank you for reading this article! Did you have any trouble with the technical terms used in this article? Our help section is the place to be where you can find in-depth articles, a FAQ and a list with common abbreviations. Still puzzled? Just post on our forum where we will help you the best we can! Never want to miss out on a space weather event or one of our news articles again? Subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and download the SpaceWeatherLive app for Android and iOS!

Latest news

Support SpaceWeatherLive.com!

A lot of people come to SpaceWeatherLive to follow the Sun's activity or if there is aurora to be seen, but with more traffic comes higher server costs. Consider a donation if you enjoy SpaceWeatherLive so we can keep the website online!

SpaceWeatherLive Pro
Support SpaceWeatherLive with our merchandise
Check out our merchandise

Latest alerts

Get instant alerts!

Space weather facts

Last X-flare2024/11/06X2.39
Last M-flare2024/11/25M1.1
Last geomagnetic storm2024/11/10Kp5+ (G1)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
October 2024166.4 +25
November 2024145.5 -20.9
Last 30 days158.8 +11.1

This day in history*

Solar flares
12000X2.81
22001X1.68
32000X1.18
42000M5.13
51999M2.97
DstG
11982-192G3
21978-149G3
32001-145
41986-105G3
52023-99G2
*since 1994

Social networks