A Spectacular Pair of Coronal Mass Ejections

As seen from the attached photo, two CME's billowed away from the Sun on May 7th. The first emerged from behind the west limb around 1000 UT, followed two and a half hours later by a brighter eruption from the vicinity of sunspot 9445. None of the ejected material appears to be Earth-directed.

Monday morning the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth turned south and triggered a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm. South-pointing IMFs render Earth's magnetosphere vulnerable to solar wind gusts and often lead to auroras.

On May 5th and 6th our planet passed through a swarm of meteoroids left behind by Halley's comet, triggering the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower. The normally vivid display was unfortunately muted because of bright moonlight. Observers in the southern hemisphere where the shower was most intense spotted fewer than a dozen bright shooting stars per hour. Nevertheless, radio meteors were abundant with hourly counts soaring to 90 or more. The eta Aquarid shower will continue at lower levels until May 12th; you can still listen to their echoes by tuning in to NASA's online meteor radar.