Bright Flare and a Coronal Mass Ejection Blast

An active region facing Earth let loose a large X2 flare (Feb. 15, 2011) and a Coronal Mass Ejection while the STEREO (Behind) spacecraft had a nice side view of the action. This was the brightest flare in over four years. The COR2 coronagraph shows a series of eruptions (during the Feb. 14th) that preceded the bright CME that raced away from the Sun and headed towards Earth early on the 15th. The impact on Earth may generate some aurora a few days later, but generally the effects are predicted to be minor. In the coronagraph the Sun is blocked out by an occulting disk so that the fainter features of the corona are visible.

• X2_COR2_flare_best.mov   
• X2_COR2flare_medium.mov   
• X2_COR2flare_small.mov   
• X2_COR2_flare_big.mpg   
• X2_COR2_flare_small.mpg   
• X2_COR2_flare.mp4   
• X2_COR2_flare.m4v   
• Print version. Right click for download.