Earth-directed X5 flare observed from STEREO-B

The second largest flare so far during the current solar cycle occurred on Wednesday, March 7. This X5 flare was seen on the solar limb in the highly ionized iron line at 195 Angstroms by the EUVI telescope (green) on the STEREO Behind spacecraft, together with the coronal mass ejection it launched toward Earth (to the right in the movie) as seen by the COR1 telescope (blue). Beautiful post-flare loops appear above the limb following the eruption in the EUVI data. Towards the end of the movie a particle storm starts affecting the data from both telescopes. This particle storm continued to intensify, affecting STEREO Behind images for two days following the flare.

• X5_flare_195B_best.mov   
• flare_20120307b_cor2.mov   
• flare_20120307b.mov   
• flare_20120307b_cor2.mpg   
• flare_20120307b.mpg