I just love these 3D colorized graphics that depict the motion of solar events in space. This one shows a CME directed almost directly toward Earth and Mars. Click on the image at right to view the animated CME path as forecast.
From SpaceWeather.com:
CME TARGETS EARTH, MARS:
A coronal mass ejection (CME) launched from the sun on Feb. 24th appears set to hit both Earth and Mars. According to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud should reach Earth today, Feb. 26th around 1330 UT, followed by Mars two days later. Click to view the CME’s animated forecast track.
Some years ago, we came back from a farewell party for my wife’s school principal in SoCal, and I looked at the night sky. I turned to my wife, thinking I was seeing things, and said, “Does the sky look…red to you?” She answered in the affirmative, so we took off looking for a fire. No fire, so we returned home, and I continued to watch the sky. It finally dawned on me (Heh! “Dawned on me.” Get it?) that I was seeing the Aurora Borealis! In southern California! I figured that there must have been one whale of a sunstorm going on to make the aurora reach SoCal!
I remember seeing it when I was just out of high school (circa 1961). We were on top of the Palos Verdes peninsula and noticed it. We also thought fire, but there was no smoke!
The Mount Wilson Webcam caught this unusual phenomenon back in May of 2001:
I’ve seen it a few times back in Northern Illinois.
Has it been ten years? Wow!
Yep. That’s pretty much what I saw that night.