Two Simultaneous Major Eruptions on the Sun

Jan. 28th began with not one but two major eruptions on the sun. Separated by more than a million kilometers, the two blasts occurred almost simultaneously on opposite corners of the solar disk....

On the lower left, a magnetic filament became unstable and erupted, hurling a portion of itself into space

. On the upper right, departing sunspot 1149 produced an M1-class solar flare and a bright coronal mass ejection (SOHO movie). Is this all a big coincidence? Maybe not. New research shows that eruptions on the sun can "go global" with widely separated blasts unfolding in concert as they trigger and feed off of one another.

These blasts are going to miss in concert, too. Plasma clouds ejected by the two eruptions will sail wide of our planet, one on the left and one on the right. No Earth-effects are expected; maybe next time.

via Spaceweather.com Time Machine.