Large solar prominence on the northwest limb
Image credit: SDO's AIA 304 (Courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams)
A large prominence lifted off the northwest limb on July 21, 2013 and generated a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), directed to the north and away from Earth.
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STEREO Ahead and STEREO Behind COR2 images show the prominence flaring on July 22, 2013 (Credit: STEREO)
Solar activity is generally low past few days. There are currently 4 numbered sunspots on the visible solar disk .Majority of the flares originated from AR 1800 which has, at the moment, beta-gamma-delta configuration of the photospheric magnetic field. The strongest flare was C3.1 which peaked at 08:44 UTC on July 21, 2013. NOAA/SWPC forecasters estimate low 10% chance of M-class solar flares.
Earth is still inside a solar wind stream flowing from the huge coronal hole located at northern hemisphere.
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Active regions and coronal holes marked on SDO's AIA 304, GOES X-ray flux plot and AIA 193 (Credit: SDO/NOAA/SWPC/TheWatchers)
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