January 04, 2021

from SpaceWeather Website

On Jan. 2, 2021, two dark filaments of magnetism erupted in the sun's southern hemisphere.

This movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captures them both; look for the shadowy filaments lifting off at the 06s and 11s marks:
 

The double eruption hurled a closely-spaced pair of CMEs toward Earth.

The first CME was slow-moving, the second was faster.

 

This could cause the two CMEs to pile one on top of the other, intensifying their impact.

NOAA forecast models suggest an arrival at Earth on Jan. 6^th.

Dark filaments are twisted tubes of magnetism containing solar plasma. They look dark only because the plasma inside is a bit cooler than the underlying sun.

In fact, they are quite hot and bright, and would outshine the full Moon if you could hold them up in the night sky.
 

Above:

One of the dark filaments

caught in flight as it

explodes away from the sun.
 

Often snaking hundreds of thousands of kilometers through the sun's atmosphere, these sinuous filaments can become unstable and erupt, hurling their contents into space.

This is what happened on January 2^nd.