LASCO observations of an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection on May 12, 1997

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that occur near the center of the solar disk are most likely to impact Earth. Detection of such events as 'halos' in white-light coronagraphs has been somewhat controversial in recent years. We present observations from the LASCO coronagraphs on SOHO that provide convincing evidence of the detection of an Earth-directed CME on May 12, 1997. The event began at about 04:35 UT and propagated outwards from the Sun with a projected speed of around 250 km s(-1). Using some reasonable assumptions about the geometry of the CME, we estimate the true speed to be around 600 km s(-1). The onset of the event in LASCO is coincident (to within measurement uncertainties) with an eruptive event detected in extreme ultraviolet observations of the solar disk by the SOHO EIT. This is the first reported observation of a halo CME at projected distances greater than 10 R-., with a clearly identifiable solar origin. We discuss the possibility that at least some of the enhanced brightness observed by LASCO may be due to a compressional wave propagating in the corona.