Activity on the far side of the sun is flaring up. The active area is almost directly below NASA's Stereo B spacecraft, which has recorded this movie of a large solar eruption and consequent shock wave. Watch carefully just after the image shifts left and you can see the shockwave move over most of the surface of the sun.

The solar rotation will bring this active area around toward the Earth in the next few days, so we may see more enhanced solar wind and aurora in the northern hemisphere.