Illustration of a CME particle cloud blasted from the sun impacting Earth and creating aurora (in actual photo of aurora as taken by an astronaut on the space station). Courtesy of SOHO. Original image can be found at http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/images/aurora01.html
The fastest coronal mass ejection was recorded on August 4, 1972 and traveled from the sun to earth in 14.6 hours - a speed of nearly 10 million kilometers per hour!