Solar activity is picking up again
Image credit: TW
After more than a week of quiet, solar activity is picking up. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is monitoring two big sunspot groups now emerging over the sun’s eastern limb. Click on the image to view a 40-hour movie.
The leading sunspot group, AR1260, is crackling with C-class solar flares among a quartet of Earth-sized cores. Not far behind, sunspot AR1261 is larger and may harbor energy for flares of its own. At the moment, these two sunspot groups are too far off disk-center to affect Earth, but this will change in the days ahead. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments. (SpaceWeather)
Numerous C-Class flares are taking place around both Sunspots 1260 and 1261 which continue to expand in the northern hemisphere. There is an increasing chance for an M-Class flare as well. The risk of an earth directed Coronal Mass Ejection will increase as the spots continue to rotate into better position. Each sunspot group is now the size of several planet earths across. (Closeup of Sunspot 1261)
Tuesday was the 180th day in a row with an officially counted visible sunspot. (SolarHam)
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