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Submitted on 2014-09-03
This movie shows the development of a magnetic delta near the initially simple sunspot group NOAA 2146, starting on 23 August. One can indeed see how a white patch (positive polarity, field lines coming out of the solar surface) gradually shaped itself south of the main spot (black, negative polarity). Then, late on 24 August, the penumbra of both spots merged and gave NOAA 2146 a delta configuration.
Submitted on 2014-08-13
Remember NOAA 2126? This relatively small sunspot group was visible from about 23 July till 3 August. It was flanked to the north and south by resp. NOAA 2129 and NOAA 2123, which were smaller and simpler sunspot groups. During its transit, NOAA 2126 produced only a few small C-class flares.
Submitted on 2014-08-06
Solar filaments are clouds of ionized gas above the solar surface squeezed between magnetic regions of opposite polarity. Being cooler and denser than the plasma underneath and their surroundings, these magnetic borderlines appear as dark lines when seen on the solar disk using special filters. As filaments grow longer, they are more likely to erupt, often accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME).
Submitted on 2014-07-31
The Sun had its own mountain stage this month, with soaring sunspot numbers during the first week, then a fast decline until sea-level values (that is: zero sunspots) were reached on the 17th, followed by a gradual recovery to more moderate sunspot numbers. This can be seen in the evolution of the estimated daily sunspot number as compiled by SILSO, and shown in graph underneath.
Submitted on 2014-07-07
Coinciding with the traditional summer festivals, the Sun started a party on its own by producing a flurry of relatively large and complex sunspot groups. While on 29 June, the daily sunspot number was only 62, by 5 July it was at an estimated 152. The 10.7cm radio flux happily joined the festivities, by rising over the same time period from 126 to 193 solar flux units.
Submitted on 2014-07-02
Late on 26 June, an eruption took place in an active region just behind the Sun's east limb. The event led to some spectacular images of the associated coronal mass ejection (CME) and post-flare coronal loops.
The eruption started around 21:00UT, and the expanding CME can be seen in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) in SDO, STEREO-B and PROBA2 imagery, as indicated with the dashed orange lines in the images underneath.
Submitted on 2014-06-25
Solar filaments are clouds of ionized gas above the solar surface squeezed between magnetic regions of opposite polarity. Being cooler and denser than the surrounding plasma, they appear as dark lines when seen on the solar disk using special filters. On 19 June, a filament north of sunspot region NOAA 2093 became unstable and swirled away from the Sun.
Submitted on 2014-06-18
On 10 and 11 June, the not so big but complex sunspot group NOAA 2087 produced three X-class flares in less than 24 hours. On 10 June, there was an X2.2 peaking at 11:42UT, followed by an X1.5 at 11:52UT. On 11 June, an X1.0 peaked at 09:06UT. This brings the X-class flare counter for the current solar cycle to 34. The associated coronal mass ejections (CME) were not directed to Earth, though from the second CME a glancing blow was expected. In the end, no obvious CME-signature was observed in the solar wind data.
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