Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) (CME)

A catastrophic expansion of a part of the coronal magnetic field that causes a huge bubble of plasma and magnetic field to erupt from the Sun. A CME can last for several hours and travels though space at a million miles per hour. CMEs are usually accompanied by a solar flare. The charged particles and magnetic fields associated with CMEs can cause power and communications outages, damage to satellites, and health problems for astronauts. They usually take about three days to reach Earth, but very fast ones can arrive in under a day.

High speed coronal mass ejections produce major disturbances in the solar wind. Often loop-like in appearance, coronal mass ejections rise as massive clouds of material from the solar atmosphere. Dangerous, high energy, charged particles are often produced in these disturbances and, when they are directed towards Earth, often produce large magnetic storms in the magnetosphere.