A new active region (AR11476) has been rotating into view during the beginning of May 2012. It has been producing CMEs and by May 5th it started releasing small M-class flares and lots of C-class flares. Between May 5-6, it produced 4 M1 flares.

The video below shows the 4 M flares at 13:23 (M1.4) and 23:01 (M1.3) UT on May 5th and 01:18 (M1.2) and 17:47 (M1.3) on May 6th.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPtnchJ98ug

There is also a nice prominence eruption from behind the limb around 8:30 UT on May 5th and a prominence eruption above the active region around 18:30 UT on May 5th. The 304, 171, 193 and 131 Angstrom wavelength channels show us plasma at temperatures around 60,000, 600,000, 2 million and 10 million Kelvin. Keep an eye out on this region!

From Martin to spaceweather.com, “Hi Tony My girlfriend and I went aurora hunting to the Co. Antrim coast after seeing your alert and that mid lats were on red alert. The aurora we saw was sublime!, the best I have seen here since 2005 with vertical green pillars of light some 60 degrees high accompanied by amazing pulsating/flamming motions like the beating of a heart which was jaw dropping. We could even see the beams reflecting on the ocean forming their own glitter paths – what a night!! Canon 450D, 18mm, ISO1600.” credit: Martin McKenna and spaceweather.com.

This geomagnetic activity was most likely from the passage of a CME (coronal mass ejection) that was observed on April 19, 2012. This was actually 3 CMEs so the impact could be due to 1 or all of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzUF7oEZENM

The resulting CME passage of Earth produced geomagnetic fluctuations with a Kp index of 6 giving a geomagnetic storm level of G2 on a scale of G1-G5.

At 17:40 UT, the Sun produced a C2 solar flare with a radio burst and a SCORE-C CME. NASA Goddard Space Weather Center predicts it will reach Earth 4/27/2012 at 5:49 UT with only minor impact. Currently, there is a small geomagnetic storm underway so those at high latitudes have a chance for Aurorae.

On April 22, 2012, filament material uncurled as an erupting prominence around sunspot group AR11463. There was a C1.8 solar flare and the resulting eruption produced a SCORE-C CME detected by SOHO/LASCO C2 at 15:30 UT. With a speed of ~646 km/s, the NASA Space Weather Center predicts the CME will impact the planet Mercury om 04/24/2012 at 01:07 UT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX_ofM-3fpM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYgYd5tUyH8

On April 19, 2012 an active region on the East (Left side) limb of the Sun produced an eruption, M1.7 Flare and CME. The eruption began around 17 UT with an M1.7 X-ray flare peaking shortly after that. The CME was first observed by SOHO/LASCO C2 at 18:10 UT. The video first shows the eruption in the 304, 171, 193, 211, 335 and 131 Angstrom wavelength SDO/AIA channels. These wavelengths provide a view of solar plasma at temperatures from ~60,000 to 15 million Kelvin. The event is then shown from farther around the left limb of the Sun using the EUVI 195 Angstrom camera from the STEREO Behind spacecraft. The CME is shown with the SOHO/LASCO C2 coronagraph in a composite image with SDO 304. The CME speed was measured by the NASA Space Weather Center (SWC) at 1250 km/s giving it a SCORE rating of O for Occasional. The CME was not Earth directed. The NASA SWC CME computer model predicted impact with Spitzer, STEREO B and Mars Science Lab (MSL) at 2012-04-18 15:23 UT, 2012-04-19 05:00 UT, and 2012-04-19 13:12 UT respectively (+- 7 hours).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Htf8C31vg

On March 12, 2012 Sunsflare posted a video asking if anyone could identify a circular object seen in SDO coronal images. The video was also posted on Facebook with the same question posed. I answered the question on facebook but here is a more detailed response and discussion of the observation. The object seen is a coronal cavity associated with a filament. There was also an eruption of the filament with a CME.

Here is the original video from Sunsflare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AwrJQ7V6bw

Then the update video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev8JGqDO8nk

Finally, I put together this more detailed response to discuss the observation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82l46fpd-ic

Thanks to NASA, ESA, SDO, SOHO, STEREO, Helioviewer, virtuallinda.com and Sunsflare!

Ukrainian Amateur astronomer, citizen scientist, and SOHO Comet Hunter Vladimir Bezugly reported a bright blob on images taken by the SWAN instrument on SOHO. This turned out to be a type of sungrazing comet called a Kreutz Comet from the same family as the famous Sun surviving Comet Lovejoy. Named after a 19th century German astronomer who studied them in detail, Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a giant comet at least 2000 years ago. Several of these fragments are thought to pass by the sun and disintegrate every day. Most are too small to see, but occasionally a big fragment like this one attracts attention. There have been 2200+ of these type of comets discovered, thanks largely to SOHO, so this would seem like no big deal. But it is because one of these has never been seen before with SWAN.

SWAN is an “all-sky” imager meaning it has a 360-degree view. It cannot look at the Sun or the Earth so those are the blacked out parts in the SWAN image. SWAN is not a traditional imager/camera. It “sees” a type of ultraviolet light called Lyman-alpha. It was designed to measure this light coming from solar wind particles interacting with solar light. But we can also see this type of light coming from comets. Solar UV radiation splits up water molecules and the liberated hydrogen atoms glow in UV light. So observing the comet in SWAN means that there is a large amount of hydrogen (water) in the comet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PmaVHCF17s

Well, so what does this all mean? This is just another sungrazer but it is also special. It is one of the brightest sungrazer Kreutz comets ever seen by SOHO. It remains a mystery as to why it is seen with a camera that usually only sees very large and very bright comets. Sungrazing comet expert Karl Battams with SOHO/LASCO said, “There is obviously something different about this comet — we just don’t know what it is (yet).” He predicts that soon the Sun with evaporate the comet but we will just have to wait and see. To keep with this comet and large more about sungrazing comets in general vist the great blog maintained by Dr. Battams, Sungrazing Comets.

credit: NASA, ESA, SOHO, SWAN, LASCO, Karl Battams

Sunspot group or active region AR11429 has almost rotated out of view but it still had enough energy to release an M7.9 X-ray solar flare, a fast coronal mass ejection (CME) and a solar energetic particle event (SEP). A geomagnetic storm due to a glancing blow from the CME is expected early March 15, 2012.

Sunspot group AR11429 has been busy on its ~2 week journey across the Sun. It has produced many solar flares (including 1 of the biggest of the current solar cycle), coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar energetic particles (SEPs). As of March 14, 2012, it has almost rotated out of the view of Earth but on March 13, 2012 the region erupted producing a flare, CME and SEP. The flare, an M7.9 X-ray event, peaked at 17:41 UT.

The resulting CME was first observed in the SOHO/LASCO C2 coronagraph at 17:36 UT, the STEREO Behind Cor2 coronagraph at 17:55 UT and the SOHO/LASCO C3 coronagraph at 17:56 UT.

The first observations of the CME in LASCO C2, Cor2B and LASCO C3. 

An increase in energetic protons, indicating the start of a SEP event, was recorded by the GOES particle monitors at 18:10 UT.

The CME had an initial estimated speed of 2250 km/s. Forecasters at the NASA Space Weather Center ran computer a computer model indicating that the flank of the CME will reach Earth at about 6:20 UT (2:20 AM EDT), March 15, 2012 (plus minus 7 hours).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB77RiFveyA

This might result in a minor/moderate geomagnetic storm. The estimated maximum Kp index is 4-6. High latitude aurora watchers should keep a look out for a light show.

The eruption also produced solar radio bursts caused by the flare and the CME.

CMEs are on their way to us! Estimated impact is March 11, 2012 around 2-3 PM EDT. High latitude aurora watchers keep lookout the night of March 11, 2012.

On March 10, 2012, the sun produced 1 C-class flare and 2 M-class flares along with 2 Earth directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The first flare was a C8 long-duration X-ray blast that peaked at 15:52 UTC (10:52 AM EST) from sunspot group AR11430. This active region is just West (to the right) of the recently busy sunspot group AR11429. AR11429 then produced 2 M-class X-ray flares. An M5.4 and an M8.4 peaking at 17:27 UT (12:27 PM EST)  and 17:44 UT (12:44 PM EST) respectively.

Figure 1: The 3 flares (C8, M5.4 and M8.4) are seen on the solar disk by SDO with arrows pointing to the corresponding peaks in the X-ray seen by the GOES X-ray monitor.

Figure 1 shows a trace of the X-ray flares recorded by the GOES X-ray monitor. Images above that plot show the flares labeled in the 131 Angstrom wavelength camera from the SDO spacecraft with arrows from the flare on the Sun to the corresponding peak in the GOES trace. The times on the SDO images do not correspond exactly to the GOES plots because the peak emission in the 131 Angstrom wavelength (extreme ultraviolet) is usually slightly after the peak emission in X-rays.

Radio bursts were observed during the M8.4 flare. The amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft in New Mexico recorded a series of radio bursts from the flare in the 21 and 28 MHz radio bands. Figure 2 shows a dynamic spectrum plot (a range of radio frequencies over time) from the flare. You can listen to an audio recording of the radio burst from the audio player below the image of the dynamic spectrum.

Figure 2: Dynamic spectrum courtesy Wes Greenman, Alachua County, Florida and spaceweather.com (Click the player below to play the audio file)

The radio burst, called a type IV radio sweep,  was caused by solar flare accelerated electrons moving around magnetic field in AR11429. Ashcraft noted, “There is incredible complexity in the waveforms. This is a recording of one of the most turbulent events in all of Nature!”

Along with the C8 flare, AR11430 produced a slow Earthward directed CME, first seen in LASCO C2 at 16:24 UT, traveling around 600 km/s. A faster CME traveling at 1400 km/s was observed in LASCO C2 at 18:09 UT and was associated with the M flares from AR11429.

Figure 3: The 2 CMEs from the March 10, 2012 eruptions seen by the SOHO LASCO/C2 coronagraph. The first panel shows the slower CME form AR11430 and the second panel shows the faster CME from AR11429 coming up behind the slower CME from earlier. Both CMEs are slightly off to the right (West) of center but they are at least partially Earth directed.

The NASA Space Weather Center produced a computer model showing the CMEs traveling basically as magnetized cloud towards Earth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf9TF-uoi1M

The 2 CMEs will reach Earth at about 2012-03-12 18:03 UT (2:03 PM EDT) (plus minus 7 hours) which might result in a moderate/strong geomagnetic storm. The estimated maximum Kp index is 5-7 (please note this is a rough estimate).

Our own Dr. Ryan Milligan of Queen’s Univerisity Belfast and the Max Millennium Observing group is reporting that the complexity and size of sunspot group AR11429 remains largely unchanged indicating that the likelihood of more M-class flares is high.

Figure 4: Sunspot group NOAA AR11429 has remained largely unchanged over the past day indicating potential for continued M-class flare activity.

Nature never ceases to surprise and amaze. Just when it looked like the geomagnetic storm from yesterdays CME impacts had fizzled out, Earth’s magnetosphere continues its upset state. Even before the Kp index (a measure of the disturbed state of Earth’s magnetic field) reached its current value amazing aurora were seen in northern latitudes.

Aurora photograph from Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland taken by Jónína Óskarsdóttir. "No words can describe the experience of the Northern Lights show tonight," says photographer Jónína Óskarsdóttir. "This is just a 1s exposure!" credit: Jónína Óskarsdóttir and spaceweather.com

Since then the Kp went from 5 with geomagnetic storm level of G1 down to Kp 4 back up to 5, 6 then 7.

The geomagnetic storm level is now G3. So according to NOAA’s scale for geomagnetic activity it could have several consequences on or near Earth-
“Power systems: voltage corrections may be required, false alarms triggered on some protection devices.

Spacecraft operations: surface charging may occur on satellite components, drag may increase on low-Earth-orbit satellites, and corrections may be needed for orientation problems.

Other systems: intermittent satellite navigation and low-frequency radio navigation problems may occur, HF radio may be intermittent, and aurora has been seen as low as Illinois and Oregon (typically 50° geomagnetic lat.).”

Aurora watchers at higher latitudes such as the northern US should keep their eyes out in the early morning and maybe even into tonight depending upon how this storm progresses. Here is an image of NOAA’s Ovation auroral oval prediction showing the estimated extend of the current storm’s aurora.

And just to make things more interesting the culprit of all this activity, sunspot group AR11429, produced an M6.3 solar flare around 10:30 PM EST.

An M6.3 solar flare from AR11429 recorded by the GOES X-ray monitor. The yellow arrow denotes the start of the flare.

The flare produced a temporary radio blackout as well as a possible Earth directed CME. We will have to wait and see. The sunspot group still shows potential for more activity as the region sits near the central meridian of the Sun. Facing directly at Earth this is a prime location to produce more geo-effective solar activity.
Here is a look at the flare captured by the 131 Angstrom wavelength camera on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). This shows us the super hot 5-10 million degree plasma produced by the solar flare.

The hot flare plasma around 5-10 Million Kelvin seen in the 131 Angstrom wavelength channel of SDO.

There is surely more to come! Stay tuned!