EARTH-DIRECTED BLAST: Magnetic fields above sunspot 1261 erupted this morning at 0619 UT, producing a long-duration M1-class solar flare. At the peak of the action, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a surge of extreme ultraviolet radiation around the sunspot:

The blast also hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) almost directly toward Earth. Space-based coronagraph images from SOHO and from STEREO-A show the cloud racing away from the sun at almost 900 km/s. Minor to moderate geomagnetic storms are possible when the CME arrives on or about August 5th.

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