Polar geomagnetic storms are underway following the arrival of a coronal mass ejection (CME) on March 7th at approximately 0400 UT. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

Shortly after the CME impact, a burst of Northern Lights appeared over the US-Canadian border.

Big sunspot AR1429 has unleashed another major flare--an X5-class eruption on March 7th at 00:28 UT. As a result of the blast, a radiation storm is underway and a CME will likely hit Earth's magnetic field in a day or so.

Geomagnetic storms are already in progress at high latitudes due to earlier eruptions from the active sunspot. Last night, auroras were spotted over several northern-tier US states including Michigan and Wisconsin.

This eruption hurled a bright CME into space, shown here in a movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Although the CME is not squarely Earth-directed, it appears direct enough to deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field on March 8-9. This would add to the magnetic unrest already underway at high latitudes.

The flare also accelerated energetic protons toward Earth, triggering an S3-class solar radiation storm, in progress. Such a storm is mainly a nuisance to satellites, causing occasional reboots of onboard computers and adding noise to imaging systems.

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