NASA SDO & NASA STEREO - The June 7 Coronal Mass Ejection

The Sun unleashed an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare with a substantial coronal mass ejection (CME) on June 7 that is visually spectacular. The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half the solar surface. The two NASA STEREO and the NASA SDO spacecrafts observed this event from three different view-points. The spacecrafts observed the flare’s peak at 1:41 AM EST. SDO recorded these images in extreme ultraviolet light and they show a very large explosion of cool gas. It is somewhat unique because at many places in the eruption there seems to be even cooler material -- at temperatures less than 80,000K. Credit: NASA SDO NASA STEREO