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Solar storm effect on the ionosphere of Earth

The sun spit out a 10-billion-ton ball of plasma. When the ball, a charged cloud of particles called a coronal mass ejection (CME)

INCOMING CME: A coronal mass ejection (CME) that billowed away from sunspot 1247 on July 9th could hit Earth's magnetic field on July 12th. Because the CME was not squarely Earth-directed and is not traveling at great speed, only minor geomagnetic storming is expected when the cloud arrives on July 12th. Nevertheless, high-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

The explosion that launched the CME was recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO):

The movie is a composite of several extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths, invisible to the human eye but apparent to SDO's bank of EUV telescopes. Different colors trace different temperatures of solar plasma, mostly in the range 1 to 2 million K (blue to yellow); these data are invaluable to researchers working to understand the physics of solar explosions. Launched little more than a year ago, SDO is only beginning its investigations. One conclusion, however, is already clear: solar activity is beautiful