Good-sized Flare and CME (February 25, 2011)

Hi-res TIF image (1.3M)

Quicktime Movie: Large (3.1M), Small (526K)
MPEG Large (4.1M), Large (2.5M)

A rather large flare (M3.6 rating) event blew out two waves of material from the Sun (Feb. 24, 2011). The brighter ejecta emerged first, but it was soon out run by a narrower stream that shot out just above it. It is suspected that these are both related to the same flare event. SOHO captured the action with its C2 coronagraph in which the sun is blocked out (by the circular occulting disk in the center of the image) to reveal the faint structures in the corona. The white circle represents the size of the Sun. These eruptions were not Earth-directed. A gorgeously detailed still and movie of the event taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) can be seen here.

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.