Yesterday I wrote about scientists being able to see sunspots as they form deep inside the Sun, well before they rise to the surface.

Around the same time, more news about the Sun was released as well. And I was ready to write up a fancy schmancy post talking all about it, I really was. It would be about how my old friend Craig DeForest used data from NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (aka STEREO) to track a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a huge blast of subatomic particles chock full o’ magnetic energy — all the way from the solar surface to the Earth… but then those folks at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center put together this terrific video explaining it really well, saving me the effort!

Very very cool. Here is a still from the actual animation of the blast:

[Click to embiggen.]

In this graphic, the Sun is on the right and the Earth on the left. The horizontal scale is logarithmic, which means it’s highly compressed; as you get farther away from the Sun (that is, looking more ...