Faint CME - glancing blow possible

Saturday, 6 February 2016 13:47 UTC

This was far from a major eruption and only a faint partial halo coronal mass ejection was launched at a width of about 120 degrees as seen on SOHO/LASCO C2 coronagraph imagery. It is heading mostly south-west of Earth's orbit at a speed between 400 and 500km/s but a glancing blow can not excluded somewhere during the second half of 9 February. We do not expect geomagnetic storm conditions (G1 or higher) from this plasma cloud but it might be of interest for high latitude sky watchers. A major impact is unlikely and we should at most see a minor increase in the solar wind speed and the IMF parameters if the plasma cloud arrives at our planet. Not too much to get excited about but during these quiet space weather periods we are of course happy with anything the Sun provides us with!

Animation: SOHO/LASCO C2 coronagraph animation showing the faint partial halo CME.