Filament eruption, G1 storm watch

Monday, 22 February 2021 19:10 UTC

Filament eruption, G1 storm watch

We are hopping in the way back time machine today and take you back to... Saturday. Yes... Saturday... Saturday as in two days ago. A filament eruption occurred around 11 UTC on the Sun's southern hemisphere and launched a partial halo coronal mass ejection which could impact our planet.

Solar filaments are clouds of ionized gas above the solar surface squeezed between magnetic regions of opposite polarity. Being cooler and denser than the plasma underneath and their surroundings, they appear as dark lines when seen on the solar disk.

Solar filaments can remain stable for a long time but sometimes they collapse back onto the Sun or break free and eject into space. That is exactly what happened two days ago. A filament on the Sun's southern hemisphere erupted away from the Sun (see the header image as captured by NASA SDO) and was launched into space. We can see the resulting coronal mass ejection (CME) on the images taken by SOHO (play the video below).

A partial halo coronal mass ejection can be seen as it expands into interplanetary space. While most of the ejecta is heading well east of our planet, we can not rule out a glancing blow on 23-24 February. The NOAA SWPC has issued a minor G1 geomagnetic storm watch for these dates.

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!

100%
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-flare2024/11/10M4.2
Last geomagnetic storm2024/11/09Kp5 (G1)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
October 2024166.4 +25
November 2024186 +19.6
Last 30 days163.1 +14.2

This day in history*

Solar flares
12004X3.67
22013X1.62
32024M4.2
42002M3.47
52001M3.33
DstG
12004-263G4
21991-144
32000-95G2
41998-93
51975-67G2
*since 1994

Social networks