Two coronal mass ejections erupted from the sun on Wednesday night and Thursday morning as billions of tons of solar particles spewed from the fiery object in the center of our solar system at 5:30 pm Alaska time on Wednesday and 1:24 am Alaska time this morning.

Both of the ejections sped through space traveling at 500 miles per second headed in the direction of Mercury. Although the coronal mass ejections were not earth-directed, mission operators of NASA’s Messenger and STEREO-A were notified of the events as the CME may pass by one or both of those spacecraft.

Messenger is an acronymn for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment,GEochemistry, and Ranging. It is a robotic NASA spacecraft orbiting the planet Murcury, studying the chemical composition, geology and magnetic field of that planet.

STEREO-A is one of two spacecraft launched in October of 2006 that orbit and study the sun and its coronal mass ejections. Combined with imagery from STEREO-B, its counterpart, the spacecraft enables stereo images of the sun. STEREO-A is further ahead in its orbit around the sun than earth, and STEREO-B lags behind the earth’s orbit around the sun.

Because low levels of particle radiation are associated with coronal mass ejections, NASA operators may find it necessary to put the spacecraft into safe mode until the events pass by. The radioactive particles can trip the sensitive equipment aboard the spacecraft and cause damage to their instruments.