Coronal mass ejection heading for Earth?

Saturday, 19 September 2015 15:22 UTC

We expected this coronal mass ejection to head south of Earth with at most a minor glancing blow as LASCO coronagraph imagery clearly shows most of the ejecta heading well south of the ecliptic plane.

Image: The coronal mass ejection as seen by NASA/ESA SOHO.

However, we were surprised by the EPAM readings this morning. The rising trend of the low energy protons as shown on EPAM suggests that there might be more ejecta on the Sun-Earth line then we first expected. It is really hard to tell what kind of geomagnetic conditions to expect if we do see an impact here at Earth from this coronal mass ejection but the steady rise on EPAM could very well be a positive sign.