h/t Roy W. Spencer
March is a peak month for auroras, and this should be a good one in the coming days.
A strong X-class solar flare lasting 5 hours has erupted on the sun, lifting a coronal mass ejection (CME) with an Earth-directed component. Play the right-hand video in the link, 1st comment, to see the CME near the end of the clip.
… the flare was unusual in that it involved two widely-separated sunspots than became magnetically connected during the flare.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/lasco-coronagraph
NOAA SWPC writes:
R3 (Strong) levels were reached on 22 March, 2024. The flare activity began from Region 3614 (to the north), and was still in progress when another flare erupted from Region 3615 (to the south). It’s tough to say with certainty at this point which flare was the source of R3 level
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