CINCO DE MAYO BLAST: With May 5th winding down, magnetic fields on the sun wound up and erupted, producing a bright coronal mass ejection (CME). Click on the image to set the cloud in motion:

(image I linked in my 2nd post this thread)

The eruption came from a spotless region near the sun's southwestern limb. Extreme ultraviolet images from SOHO pinpoint the blast site: movie. The billion-ton cloud is not heading directly for Earth, although it could deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field on or about May 8th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend.