1:20 PM | Suddenly, the sun has become quite active; Coronal Mass Ejection on the farside of the sun and a small comet plunges to its demise early today (both captured on video) at the same time sunspot activity increases dramatically
Paul Dorian
Discussion
There has suddenly been an uptick in action on the sun as sunspot activity has increased dramatically in recent days from a rather quiet picture just a few days ago to one with numerous sunspots now facing the Earth. In addition to the increasing sunspot activity, there was a coronal mass ejection (CME) early this morning on the far-side of the sun. It is likely that this CME will not have an impact on the Earth’s upper atmosphere since it took place in a “non-Earth facing” direction. Finally, a small comet plunged into the sun early this morning at just about the same time the sun expelled the CME. Not surprisingly, the comet did not survive its encounter with the sun as it vaporized furiously upon approach. The comet was still millions of kilometers away from the sun when the explosion got underway. Amazingly, NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured on video both the CME and the small comet disintegration from earlier today. We’ll continue to monitor the sun over the next several days to see if the uptick in sunspot activity produces any Earth-facing CMEs.
Video
httpv://youtu.be/xRw-CvTpkUs