NCOMING CME: A CME from sunspot AR1429 is nearing Earth. According to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud will arrive on March 11th at 0649 UT (+/- 7 hr). NOAA forecasters say the odds of a strong geomagnetic storm at that time is 50%.

The same eruption that hurled the CME toward Earth also produced amonsterous tsunami of plasma on the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the shadowy but powerful wave rippling away from the blast site:

The tsumani was about 100,000 km high and raced outward at 250 km/s with a total energy of about 2 million megatons of TNT. Such waves often underlie CMEs like the one en route to Earth now.

Animated forecast tracks show that the CME will also hit the Mars Science Lab (MSL) spacecraft on March 12th followed by Mars itself on March 13th. Mars rover Curiosity onboard MSL might get some interesting readings as the cloud passes by.

fr/spaceweather.com