After Solar Flare Sprays Earth With Charged Plasma, a Beautiful Aurora

Thursday, August 5, 2010 - 10:56 in Astronomy & Space

Aurora over Denmark Jesper Grønne via NASA/SDO On Sunday, sunspot number 1092 emitted a C-class solar flare--not a large one, by solar flare standards. But NASA scientists were intrigued by what accompanied it--an unusually fast corona mass ejection that sent a large cloud of charged plasma toward Earth. There will be no adverse effects here on Earth--other than increased aurora activity. This shot was captured by Jesper Grønne in Denmark, and was posted on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory blog. You can read more about the flare here. [SDO]

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