Solar Facts and Space Weather
A sunspot region with potential, AR11678! Yes pun intended. This solar active region (AR for short) has emerged suddenly from under the solar photosphere (the visible “surface”) packed with magnetic potential energy and the potential for some significant flaring. It has grown to over 6 Earth diameters across but its full extent is hard to [...]
4 M-class Flares and More 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 [...]
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 [...]
Sunspot group, AR11429, started off its journey across the Earth facing side of the Sun with several bangs. First it produced an M flare on March 2 at 17:29 UT (with a CME) then came another M flare (with a CME) at 10:29 on March 4 followed and X flare with CME early on March [...]
Sunspot group AR11429! Here is a look at AR11429 from Friday to today showing the 2 M-class and 1 X-class flare blasting away from the Sun. In addition to those events and their associated CMEs there is a lot of activity from the active region and the area surrounding it. This video is a composite [...]
![Trajectory_AsOf20111212[1]](http://www.thesuntoday.org/thesuntoday/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Trajectory_AsOf201112121-150x150.png)
UPDATE: Lovejoy survived despite most predictions to the contrary! Check the videos below. A sungrazing comet called Lovejoy is near what will surely be its end. Sungrazers melted by the Sun is not really new. In fact, SOHO has become the most prolific comet observer at over 2000 and counting. But what makes this special [...]
Solar Activity Solar activity was at low to moderate levels, with occurrences of several C-class flares and three M class flares (see the list below). Quite a few slow to moderate CMEs were detected emanating from different regions of the Sun (some of them are listed below) throughout this week. Flares (M class and above): [...]
Saturday, October 22, 2011, started like most any other day, lots of activity of varying size and shape was occurring on the Sun. Most people looking at the Sun that day remember the spectacular lightbulb shaped CME that occurred from just behind the Northwest limb. Here is the eruption and flare. and the resulting [...]
We have been getting a number of questions and comments lately regarding the possible relationship between solar activity and geological activity, such as earthquakes and volcanoes, so I have decided to look into the matter in more detail. First let us pose the science question we wish to answer: do solar flares cause earthquakes? Note [...]
At 01:50 UT, sunspot group, AR11283, produced an M5 solar flare and CME (coronal mass ejection) from near the center of the solar disk. The CME appears to be moving at an angle away from a path straight towards us. This means that while we may experience some impact its effects will be much [...]
