FARSIDE EXPLOSION: Yesterday, something exploded on the far side of the sun. The blast hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) over the sun's limb, recorded by coronagraphs on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Click on the image to launch a 14-hour time lapse movie:
The source of the eruption is probably sunspot 1029, which is transiting the far side of the sun. Last week, when sunspot 1029 was visible from Earth, it quickly grew into the biggest and most active sunspot of the year, unleashing ten C-class solar flares in just a few days. Apparently, the action hasn't stopped. The sun's rotation will turn the sunspot back toward Earth about a week from now. If the sunspot holds together that long, we could experience some solar activity.
