coronal mass ejection

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an ejection of material from the solar corona, usually observed with a white-light coronagraph. The ejected material is a plasma consisting primarily of electrons and protons (in addition to small quantities of heavier elements such as helium, oxygen, and iron), plus the entrained coronal magnetic field. The first detection of a CME was made on December 14, 1971 by R. Tousey (1973) using the 7th Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO-7).
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