A medium-size solar flare erupted from the sun this weekend, hurling a cloud of plasma and charged particles toward Earth on a cosmic path that is expected to deliver a glancing blow to our planet tomorrow (July 31), according to space weather forecasters.
The M6-class solar flare exploded from the sun on Saturday (July 28), unleashing a wave of plasma and charged particles, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), into space. The CME is expected to reach Earth tomorrow, and could deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field at around 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), according to the website Spaceweather.com, which regularly monitors space weather events.
"This is a slow-moving CME," astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on Spaceweather.com. "The cloud's low speed (382 km/s estimated) combined with its glancing trajectory suggests a weak impact is in the offing. Nevertheless, polar geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives."
Space
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