Context :

Aims : The aim of this work is to determine the multi-thermal characteristics and plasma energetics of an eruptive plasmoid and occulted flare observed by Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly ( SDO/AIA ) .

Methods : We study an event from 03-Nov-2010 ( peaking at 12:20UT in GOES soft X-rays ) of a coronal mass ejection and occulted flare which demonstrates the morphology of a classic erupting flux rope .
The high spatial , and time resolution , and six coronal channels , of the SDO/AIA images allows the dynamics of the multi-thermal emission during the initial phases of eruption to be studied in detail .
The Differential Emission Measure ( DEM ) is calculated , using an optimised version of a regularized inversion method ( Hannah & Kontar 2012 ) , for each pixel across the six channels at different times , resulting in emission measure maps and movies in a variety of temperature ranges .

Results : We find that the core of the erupting plasmoid is hot ( 8-11 , 11-14MK ) with a similarly hot filamentary “ stem ” structure connecting it to the lower atmosphere , which could be interpreted as the current sheet in the flux rope model , though is wider than these models suggest .
The velocity of the leading edge of the eruption is 597-664 km s ^ { -1 } in the temperature range \geq 3-4MK and between 1029-1246 km s ^ { -1 } for \leq 2-3MK .
We estimate the density ( in 11-14 MK ) of the erupting core and stem during the impulsive phase to be about 3 \times 10 ^ { 9 } cm ^ { -3 } , 6 \times 10 ^ { 9 } cm ^ { -3 } , 9 \times 10 ^ { 8 } cm ^ { -3 } in the plasmoid core , stem and surrounding envelope of material .
This gives thermal energy estimates of 5 \times 10 ^ { 29 } erg , 1 \times 10 ^ { 29 } erg and 2 \times 10 ^ { 30 } erg .
The kinetic energy for the core and envelope is slightly smaller .
The thermal energy of the core and current sheet grows during the eruption , suggesting continuous influx of energy presumably via reconnection .

Conclusions : The combination of the optimised regularized inversion method and SDO/AIA data allows the multi-thermal characteristics ( i.e .
velocity , density and thermal energies ) of the CME eruption to be determined .