'Cannibal' coronal mass ejection that devoured 'dark eruption' from sun will smash into Earth tomorr

(July 18)

By Harry Baker published about 8 hours ago

Two coronal mass ejections have combined into an enormous cloud of magnetized plasma that is forecast to hit Earth on Tuesday and potentially trigger a strong geomagnetic storm.



A coronal mass ejection (CME) being launched by a solar flare (highlighted) on July 15. The CME later cannibalized another CME that launched earlier on July 14 and is now heading straight for Earth. (Image credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory)


A "cannibal" coronal mass ejection (CME) birthed from multiple solar storms, including a surprise "dark eruption," is currently on a collision course with Earth and could trigger a sizable geomagnetic storm on our planet when it hits on Tuesday (July 18).

CMEs are large, fast-moving clouds of magnetized plasma and solar radiation that occasionally get flung into space alongside solar flares — powerful explosions on the sun's surface that are triggered when horseshoe-shaped loops of plasma located near sunspots snap in half like an overstretched elastic band. If CMEs smash into Earth, they can cause geomagnetic storms — disturbances in our planet's magnetic field — that can trigger partial radio blackouts and produce vibrant aurora displays much farther away from Earth's magnetic poles than normal.

A cannibal CME is created when an initial CME is followed by a second faster one. When the second CME catches up to the first cloud, it engulfs it, creating a single, massive wave of plasma.

On July 14, the sun launched a CME alongside a dark eruption — a solar flare containing unusually cool plasma that makes it look like a dark wave compared to the rest of the sun's fiery surface — from sunspot AR3370, a small dark patch that until then had gone largely unnoticed, according to Spaceweather.com. On July 15, a second, faster CME was launched from the much larger sunspot AR3363.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/cannibal-coronal-mass-ejection-that-devoured-dark-eruption-from-sun-will-smash-into-earth-tomorrow-july-18