Solar wind stream blowing from big coronal hole, new sunspot regions forming
The dark vertical coronal hole, about 120,000 km wide and more than a million km long, stretches in the center of the Sun. A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on Jan. 16-17, possibly sparking auroras at high-latitudes. Coronal holes are places where the sun’s magnetic field opens up and allows the solar wind to escape. (SpaceWeather)
New sunspots formed yesterday, including fast growing Sunspot 1396 in the northern hemisphere. A second region AR 1397 formed in the southern hemisphere and third sunspot is forming just to the southwest of existing region 1395, and was numbered 1398. An active region is hiding on the northeast limb and will soon begin to rotate into direct Earth view. An explosion Thursday morning, produced a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) off the northeast limb. That blast registered as a very long duration C-Class flare. (Watch the video!) (SolarHam)
CURRENT CONDITIONS:
Solar wind
speed: 403.4 km/sec
density: 3.8 protons/cm3
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: C2 0335 UT Jan14
24-hr: C2 0335 UT Jan14
The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 124 sfu
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1 quiet
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 2.1 nT
Bz: 0.1 nT south
The auroras were sparked by the onset of a solar wind stream (~550 km/s), which reached Earth during the early hours of Jan. 13th causing wonderfull auroras.
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