SOMETHING IN THE OFFING: A potentially significant active region is about to rotate onto the Earthside of the sun. A hot plume of plasma flying over the sun's northeastern limb heralded its approach during the early hours of April 15th:

Extreme UV image credit: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

The eruption hurled a coronal mass ejection toward NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab have prepared a forecast track showing the progress of the cloud. No planets are in the line of fire.

Stay tuned for updates as the sun turns to reveal the active region in the days ahead. Solar flare alerts: text, phone.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McAI6lSJsUY]