Edward.Vijayakumar

Wow! Significant dimming visible across almost the entire disk, a clear signature of a powerful CME. This eruption is truly massive. #SpaceWeather

Welcome home Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy! 🫶 The Artemis II astronauts have splashed down at 8:07pm ET (0007 UTC April 11), bringing their historic 10-day mission around the Moon to an end.

Another view of the zodiacal light behind the Moon, from a camera on the solar cells. And the daily Artemis II press conferences resume now, the first one post-flyby coming up at the bottom of the hour: youtube.com/watch?v=5YWATA…

oh man... images.nasa.gov/details/art002…

BREAKING (not really): CCOR-2 imagery is here and we now have confirmation on what we already suspected, comet MAPS nucleus disintegrated before even reaching perihelion. Low quality video but it’ll do it just fine. Note the striking nucleus-less appearance after the 8th second.

And so the *real* images from the #ArtemisII ride behind the Moon are beginning to come in! Here is the Earth setting at 22:41 UTC yesterday: flickr.com/photos/nasa2ex…

THE ARTEMIS II ECLIPSE. April 6, 2026. Totality, beyond Earth. From lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, revealing a view few in human history have ever witnessed. Photo: NASA

Comet MAPS disintegrated dust cloud seen emerging from behind the Sun in this short animation from the SOHO C2 Coronagraph.

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) update: the comet still looks healthy and it is *bright* (as of April 4th, 3:45 UTC)! It is now into negative magnitude territory, having brightened past 1st magnitude late in the afternoon (UTC) yesterday. LASCO C3 images are not as useful as CCOR-1 due to interference (vignetting) by the occulting disk pylon. Comet maps is now also trailing a dust tail approximately 2.5° long. Impressive!

G2-geomagnetic storm is in progress due to CME arrival. Solar wind speed has increased to 850 km/s, with Bt at 14 nT and Bz reaching −11 nT. Likely related to the April 1st C6.1/filament CME.

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) update: LASCO C3 has finally updated (12:06 UTC) and the comet is significantly brighter, probably around magnitude 2. It is still significantly fainter than Saturn was in the previous image, at magnitude 1. It also still looks intact. We will probably begin to see blooming spikes when/if it approaches magnitude 0. Will it disintegrate or are we in for a headless comet post-perihelion?

Comet MAPS from NASA STEREO Spacecraft, the bright star is Aldebaran. Soon he will be entering the FOV of LASCO C3, which will give us much better images.

NASA ENLIL model predicts that the CME from the C6.1 flare will deliver a glancing blow to Earth. Shock arrival expected on April 4th at 02:49 UTC (+\- 7 hrs).

Prior to the NW eruption, a filament eruption was observed from the SW region.

AR4403 produced a C6.1 flare accompanied by a nice eruption. The associated CME seems directed toward the NW, glancing impact likely.

Welp this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Artemis II 🚀

Historic launch, back again...!

The anticipated X1.5 CME has arrived. Solar wind speed has increased to 500 km/s, with Bt at 16 nT. Bz is variable.

NOAA ENLIL model predicts a glancing impact from the X1.5 CME on March 31st around 19:00 UTC.

The NASA M2M office is on it! Their model run shows the western edge of this storm may compress the SIR ahead of it, thanks to the fast wind from the coronal hole. So although the blast wave did get damped at its western flank, it looks like compression of the coming SIR might make up for the loss. This means aurora photographers, get ready for some action March 31!

Not many coronagraph images yet, but thus far it looks like the event will graze Earth. How large a hit will depend upon how much material drapes around it on its way to Earth. Erupting next to a coronal hole means the storm will likely encounter a nearby stream interaction region (SIR). If the storm can compress the SIR significantly, we could get something substantial.