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A huge sunspot unleashed a blob of charged plasma Thursday that space weather watchers predict will blast past the Earth on Sunday.

But, he added, “We’re not looking at an extreme event here.”

“At first glance, it was, ‘Oh my God, it’s at the center of the [sun’s] disk, it ought to go right to the Earth,’ ” Kunches said. But upon further review and “head-scratching” Thursday, NOAA’s space weather team calculated that most of the plasma blob should pass harmlessly over the top of our planet.

may potentially interfere with satellites in orbit and power grids when it reaches Earth.

Early predictions estimate that the CME will reach Earth

Typically, CMEs contain 10 billion tons of solar plasma and material

Orbiting the Earth at a distance of 36,000 kilometers in geosynchronous orbit, the SDO usually has a spectacular, uninterrupted view of our nearest star

The sharp edge of the lunar limb helps researchers measure the in-orbit characteristics of the telescope

how light diffracts around the telescope's optics and filter support grids

triggered weaker-than-expected disruptions

Early forecasts showed that the oncoming CME could boost solar radiation in space and trigger geomagnetic storms on Earth, potentially disrupting satellites, power grids and other electronic infrastructure.

effects of the solar tempest have been milder than scientists originally predicted

April 10, 1912 file photo, the Luxury liner Titanic departs Southampton, England

Researchers have pieced together what's believed to be the first comprehensive map of the entire 3-by-5-mile Titanic debris field

Marks on the muddy ocean bottom suggest, for instance, that the stern rotated like a helicopter blade as the ship sank, rather than plunging straight down

Tuesday

One of the flares is the most powerful solar eruption of the year, so far.

Both of the huge flares ranked as X-class storms, the strongest type of solar flares the sun can have