news
Submitted on 2014-09-14
On 1 September around 11:05UT, the STEREO-B spacecraft observed a huge blast on the farside of the Sun (see this movie). The maximum strength of the flare was cautiously estimated to be between M5 and X1.5, giving it a good chance the event belonged to the category of "eXtreme" flares.
Submitted on 2014-09-14
On 10 September at 17:45UT, NOAA 2158 produced the 35th X-class flare of the ongoing solar cycle. The X1.6 event was extensively covered in this news item. The images underneath show the sunspot region in white light and the corresponding magnetogram about 30 minutes prior to the flare's peak, and the flare at its maximum flux as observed in SDO/AIA 171. The flare took place along the borderline between negative (blue) and positive (red) magnetic polarity.
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.
Pages
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by
WeebPal.
