Far-side Blast (March 4, 2011)

Hi-res TIF image (2.2M)

Quicktime Movie: Large ( 38M), Small ( 11M)
MPEG Large (6.1M), Large (3.7M)

The STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft caught a large coronal mass ejection as it roared away from the Sun and out into space in the opposite direction from Earth (Feb. 26-28, 2011). The bright cloud of particles was one of most substantial eruptions that STEREO has observed. The major blast was followed by a much narrower and less bright one. The video clip covers a little more than two days. In these corongraph images, the Sun is blocked out by the red occulting disk and the size of the Sun is represented by the white circle.

SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.

If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.