Space

M5-class solar flare on May 22

The sun produced an M5-class flare earlier today, which peaked at 1332 UTC (8:32 CDT on May 22, 2013). In the image below – from NASA SOHO, you can see the beautiful coronal mass ejection produced in the flare. The CME was not Earth-directed but could deliver a glancing blow in the next few days.

M5-class explosion from sunspot AR1745, which was about to disappear behind the sun's western limb. The flare peaked at 1332 UTC (8:32 CDT) on May 22, 2013.
M5-class explosion from sunspot AR1745, which was about to disappear behind the sun’s western limb. The flare peaked at 1332 UTC (8:32 CDT) on May 22, 2013. The sun is behind the occulting disk at the center of the image, which is from from NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, space observatory.

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Posted 
May 22, 2013
 in 
Space

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