Class M5.7 CME - M1.3 Flare Solar Magnetic Tornado HD

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Sunspot group AR1739, just now emerging over the sun's northeastern limb, erupted on May 3rd, producing an M5-class solar flare and a "solar tornado."  watch the plasma twist.
The explosion also hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) into space:  Traveling almost 1300 km/s, the electrified cloud is expected to sweep past a couple of NASA spacecraft (EPOXI and Spitzer) on May 7th. No planets, however, were in the line of fire