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Jan. 18th, 2005 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselking
Massive solar flare sends storm of charged particles towards Earth
A huge sunspot kicked up a powerful flare Monday that could spark colorful sky lights above Earth Tuesday night or early Wednesday.
The flare was classified as X-3. All X-class flares are considered major, with the number indicated a degree of severity. Its radiation traveled at light-speed, arriving at Earth within minutes and, along the way, swamping a detector on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft, which monitors the Sun and its storms.
Along with the flare came a billowing cloud of charge particles known as a coronal mass ejection (CME). Traveling at millions of miles per hour, CMEs take anywhere from about 17 hours to two or three days to reach Earth.
Scientists expect this CME to arrive overnight Tuesday or sometime Wednesday.