ANOTHER INCOMING CME: As Earth’s magnetic field reverberates from one CME strike, a second more potent CME is on the way. It was propelled in our direction by sunspot AR1748, which unleashed an M3-class solar flare on May 17th (0858 UT). Although this is not the strongest flare we’ve seen from AR1748, it could be the most geoeffective; the sunspot was almost-squarely facing Earth when the blast occurred. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the cloud arrives.

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory took this picture of the CME leaving the sun at 1500 km/s (3.4 million mph) on May 17th:

In the video, the CME appears to hit Mercury, but it does not. It is merely passing in front of the innermost planet. The planet in the line of fire is actually Earth.

from:    spaceweather.com