Earlier this month, AR1944/AR1967 produced an X1-class solar flare and one of the strongest radiation storms of the current solar cycle. Is round 2 about to begin? Solar activity is definitely increasing as AR1967 comes around he bend. Earth orbiting satellites have detected at least five M-class solar flares since yesterday, including this one recorded on Jan. 28th (07:30 UT) by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
Crackling with solar flares, a large sunspot is emerging over the sun's southeactive limb. It appears to be AR1944, returning after a two-week trip around the farside of the sun. Earlier today, astronomer Karzaman Ahmad photographed the active region from the Langkawi National Observatory in Malasia: According to tradition, sunspots that circle around the farside of the sun are re-numbered when they return. The new designation of AR1944 is AR1967. "Sunspot AR1967 is as big as Earth!" notes Ahmad. Earlier this month, AR1944/AR1967 produced an X1-class solar flare and one of the strongest radiation storms of the current solar cycle. Is round 2 about to begin? Solar activity is definitely increasing as AR1967 comes around he bend. Earth orbiting satellites have detected at least five M-class solar flares since yesterday, including this one recorded on Jan. 28th (07:30 UT) by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory: More flares are in the offing. NOAA forecasters estimate a 5% chance of X-flares and a 50% chance of M-flares during the next 24 hours. www.spaceweather.com
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Published on 7 Jan 2014
Website: http://www.suspicious0bservers.org Blog: http://www.suspicious0bserverscollect... (Click Daily News for all the Charts/Interactives) Major Warnings/Alerts: https://twitter.com/TheRealS0s Today's Featured Links: Fermi Gamma Lensing: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/januar... Brazil Flooding: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD... Where to See Antares Rocket: http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/... Mine Landslide Quake: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/m... Intellicast Current Temps: http://www.intellicast.com/National/T... Original music by NEMES1S UPDATE: X-FLARE: Giant sunspot AR1944 erupted on Jan 7th at approximately 1832 UT, producing a powerful X1-class solar flare. First-look coronagraph images from the STEREO-Ahead spacecraft appear to show a coronal mass ejection (CME) emerging from the blast site. If so, the CME is almost certainly heading for Earth. Stay tuned for updates as more data arrive from the NASA-ESA Heliophysics Fleet. One of the biggest sunspots in years is crossing the center of the solar disk, putting Earth in the way of potential eruptions. Rocky Raybell photographed the active region named "AR1944" yesterday from his backyard in Keller, Washington: The sprawling sunspot contains dozens of dark cores, the largest big enough to swallow Earth three times over. This makes it an easy target for amateur solar telescopes. Raybell used a backyard 'scope capped with a Baader solar filter to capture both the sunspot and trees in the foreground. Photo details may be found here. Although AR1944 has been mostly quiet for days, flares are in the offing. The sunspot has an unstable 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that could erupt at any time. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of M-class flares and a 30% chance of X-flares on Jan. 7th. Click here for A 4-day movie of AR1944 from the Solar Dynamics Observtory CHANCE OF STORMS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Jan. 7th when a CME is expected to deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field. The CME was hurled in our direction by an M4-class explosion from giant sunspot AR1944 on Jan. 4th. High latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.
UPDATE: CME IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 7th at approximately 1500 UT. The glancing impact did not immediately spark a geomagnetic storm. However, storm conditions could develop as Earth travels through the CME's wake. High latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras. www.spaceweather.com 2014 began with a bang. At 18:54 UT on January 1st, big sunspot AR1936 erupted, producing a strong M9-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash: The movie shows a dark filament of plasma racing away from the blast site, but most of the material fell back to the stellar surface. Nevertheless, the explosion did produce a CME that could deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field later this week. NOAA analysts are still evaluating this possibility. The M9-flare of New Year's Day followed close on the heels of an M6-flare on New Year's Eve. Sunspot AR1936 produced both explosions. The New Year's Eve event produced a minor, slow-moving CME that is not expected to disturb Earth's magnetic field if and when it does arrive. Sunspot AR1936 is active, but new sunspot AR1944 looks even more potent. The behemoth active region emerged over the sun's southeastern limb on Jan 1st: Because of foreshortening near the sun's limb, the complexity of AR1944's magnetic field is still unknown. The sheer size of the sunspot, however, suggests it is capable of strong flares. The emergence of AR1944 combined with the ongoing activity from AR1936 has prompted NOAA forecasters to raise the odds of eruptions on Jan. 2nd to 70% for M-flares and 30% for X-flares. www.spaceweather.com
A high-speed solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field. When the stream arrived during the late hours of Dec. 7th, a G2-class geomagnetic storm broke out around the poles and Northern Lights spilled over the Canadian border into several US states. Christopher Griffith sends this snapshot from Pillager, Minnesota: "The auroras were dancing lightly across the sky," says Griffith. "It was quite fantastic and fun to watch despite the temperature being -25 F." NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of additional geomagnetic storms on Dec. 8th and 9th. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras as the solar wind continues to blow. www.spaceweather.com Cancel the funeral. Comet ISON is back from the dead. Yesterday, Nov. 28th, Comet ISON flew through the sun's atmosphere and appeared to disintegrate before the cameras of several NASA and ESA spacecraft. This prompted reports of the comet's demise. Today, the comet has revived and is rapidly brightening. Click here to view a SOHO coronagraph movie of the solar flyby (updated Nov. 29 @ 1800 UT): Before the flyby, experts had made many predictions about what might happen to the comet, ranging from utter disintegration to glorious survival. No one predicted both.
Karl Battams of NASA's Comet ISON Observing Campaign says, "[colleague] Matthew Knight and I are ripping our hair out right now as we know that so many people in the public, the media and in science teams want to know what's happened. We'd love to know that too! Right now, here's our working hypothesis: "As comet ISON plunged towards to the Sun, it began to fall apart, losing not giant fragments but at least a lot of reasonably sized chunks. There's evidence of very large dust in the long thin tail we saw in the [SOHO coronagraph] images. Then, as ISON plunged through the corona, it continued to fall apart and vaporize, losing its coma and tail completely just like sungrazing Comet Lovejoy did in 2011. What emerged from the Sun was a small but perhaps somewhat coherent nucleus that has resumed emitting dust and gas for at least the time being." Battams emphasizes that it is too soon to tell how big the remnant nucleus is or how bright the resurgent comet will ultimately become. "We have a whole new set of unknowns, and this ridiculous, crazy, dynamic and unpredictable object continues to amaze, astound and confuse us no end. We ask that you please be patient with us for a couple of days as we analyze the data and try to work out what is happening." Astrophotographer Babak Tafreshi has edited an HD video that compares views of ISON from both of SOHO's coronagraphs. "It seems the comet could become a naked eye object with several degrees of scattered tail by Dec 2nd or 3rd," he predicts. "It's not the comet of the century for sure, and fainter than the Lovejoy sungrazer in Dec. 2011, but an interesting imaging target is just a few nights away!" www.spaceweather.com New images from SOHO show something emerging from behind the sun. It could be a small fragment of Comet ISON's nucleus or perhaps a "headless comet"--a stream of debris marking the remains of the comet's disintegrated core.
Watch the movie and stay tuned for updates. www.spaceweather.com Comet Ison destroyed in Sun passage By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News Comet Ison was severely battered in its encounter with the Sun, and largely destroyed. Telescopes saw the giant ball of ice and dust disappear behind the star, but only a dull streamer emerge. Astronomers continued to search for the object, but it eventually became clear that the much vaunted "Comet of the Century" had gone out with a whimper. Despite its great size, Ison was probably torn apart in the immense heat and tidal forces so close to the Sun. The European Space Agency's experts on the Soho Sun-watching satellite called the death of the comet at about 21:30 GMT. "Our Soho scientists have confirmed, Comet Ison is gone," Esa's twitter feed announced. Full report at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25143861 Departing sunspot AR1893 erupted on Nov. 19th, producing an X1-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash at 10:26 UT: Although the sunspot is not directly facing Earth, the flare did affect our planet. Mainly, the UV flash produced a wave of ionization in the upper atmosphere over Europe, Africa and parts of Asia. A brief blackout of HF radio transmissions around the poles might have also occurred. The explosion hurled a CME into space: movie but the cloud is not heading toward Earth. www.spaceweather.com On Nov. 5th at 22:12 UT, the magnetic canopy of sunspot AR1890 erupted, producing a brief but intense X3-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash: Radiation from the flare caused a surge in the ionization of Earth's upper atmosphere--and this led to a rare magnetic crochet. Alexander Avtanski observed the effect using a homemade magnetometer in San Jose, California. A magnetic crochet is a disturbance in Earth's magnetic field caused by electrical currents flowing in air 60 km to 100 km above our heads. Unlike geomagnetic disturbances that arrive with CMEs days after a flare, a magnetic crochet occurs while the flare is in progress. They tend to occur during fast impulsive flares like this one. More eruptions are in the offing. www.spaceweather.com Early Sunday morning, sky watchers along the east coast of North America might notice something missing--a piece of the sun. A partial eclipse will be underway at sunrise. Dawn will look something like this: Left: A sunrise eclipse in Italy on Jan. 4, 2011. Credit: Antonio Finazzi [More] As much as 54% of the sun will be covered by the New Moon; the size of the bite depends on location. To see it, look east between about 6:30 am and 7 am EST. Although low-hanging clouds might dim the sun to naked-eye visibility, safe solar filters are strongly recommended. Aluminized Mylar and #14 welder's glass are popular choices. Also, don't forget that Daylight Time changes to Standard Time at 2 am on Nov. 3rd. Set your clocks back one hour before the eclipse begins! Sunrise is just the beginning. Next, the eclipse races across the Atlantic toward Africa where coverage reaches 100%. Inside a narrow path of totality, sky watchers can see the sun's ghostly corona spring out from behind the Moon. The dark core of the Moon's shadow will touch parts of several African nations including Gabon, the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. In those places, totality can be seen. Meanwhile, a partial eclipse will be visible across the entire continent: visibility map. More information from NASA , Sky and Telescope, EarthSky and Shadow & Substance. www.spaceweather.com SPOOKY AURORAS? NOAA forcasters estimate a 25% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Oct. 31st when a CME is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. It was propelled in our direction by an M4-class flare from sunspot AR1882 on Oct. 28th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on Halloween. ANOTHER X-FLARE: Consider it a parting shot. Just before sunspot AR1875 rotated over the sun's western limb on Oct. 29th, it unleashed a powerful X2-class solar flare. NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash: X-rays and UV radiation from the flare ionized the top of our planet's atmosphere. Waves of ionization disturbed the normal propagation of radio waves over the Americas and the Pacific, and may have caused an HF communications blackout over the poles. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded a bright CME emerging from the blast site. Given the sunspot's location on sun's western limb, however, it is unlikely the CME will reach our planet. Analysts at NOAA are busy evaluating the possibility of a glancing blow in the days ahead. Sunspot AR1875 has left the Earthside of the sun, but other active sunspots remain. NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of M-class flares and a 25% chance of X-flares on Oct. 30th. www.spaceweather.com Earth-orbiting satellites detected an X1-class solar flare from sunspot AR1875 on Oct. 28th at 0203 UT. This is the 3rd X-flare since Oct. 25th, which means solar activity is still high. Stay tuned for more information about the latest eruption.
Electromagnetic radiation from today's X2-class solar flare had a significant effect on Earth's upper atmosphere. As a wave of ionization swept across the dayside of the planet, the normal propagation of shortwave radio signals was scrambled. In Alachua, Florida, electrical engineer Wes Greenman recorded the effects using his own shortwave radio telescope. Click on the frequency-time plot to view an animation (it takes about 4 seconds to start moving): During the time that terrestrial shortwave transmissions were blacked out, the sun filled in the gap with a loud radio burst of its own. In New Mexico, amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded the sounds. "This radio burst was a strong one and might be too intense for headphones," cautions Ashcraft.
Solar radio bursts are caused by strong shock waves moving through the sun's atmosphere. (Electrons accelerated by the shock front excite plasma instabilities which, in turn, produce shortwave static.) They are usually a sign that a CME is emerging from the blast site--and indeed this flare produced a very bright CME. www.spaceweather.com New sunspot AR1882 isn't very big, but it is potent. The active region has already unleashed two strong solar flares today: An X1 at 08:01 UT followed by an X2 at 15:07 UT. There is no reason to think this fusillade will end soon, so stay tuned for more flares.
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