M Class Eruption Near Sunspot 9393

NASA Space Science News

An M-class eruption near the giant sunspot 9393 hurled a coronal mass ejection toward Earth on Wednesday, March 28th. The faint expanding cloud (pictured right in a SOHO coronagraph animation) could arrive by Friday and trigger a new round of auroras and other geomagnetic disturbances. Stay tuned for updates.

GIANT SUNSPOT: The fast-growing sunspot 9393 now covers an area of the solar disk thirteen equivalent to the surface area of 13 planet Earths. That makes it the largest sunspot of the current solar cycle. You can see this huge spot for yourself, but be careful: Looking directly at the Sun can cause permanent eye damage. Click to learn more about safe solar observing.

Sunspot animation -- watch sunspot 9393 grow in this SOHO white light solar movie spanning March 22-28.