SOLAR STORM HEATS UP EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE: A flurry of solar activity in early March dumped enough heat in Earth's upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years. The heat has since dissipated, but there's more to come as the solar cycle intensifies. [full story] [video]
INCREDIBLE SUNSPOT AR1429: Big sunspot AR1429, the source of so many strong flares and geomagnetic storms earler this month, is still erupting. The active region produced a significant coronal mass ejection on March 24th at 00:39 UT. Because of the sunspot's location on the far side of the sun, this particular CME will not hit Earth. An animated forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab shows the trajectory of the expanding cloud:
The leading edge of the CME is espected to arrive at the STEREO-B spacecraft on March 25th at 13:08 UT (+/- 7 hours). None of the inner panets will be affected.