According to the latest WSA-Enlil Solar Wind Prediction track, the CME from Thursday may deliver a glancing blow late on April 8th. Only minor geomagnetic activity is expected as a majority of the plasma cloud will miss Earth. (Check this animation). NOAA forecasters
A pair of Coronal Mass Ejections are now visible in the latest STEREO Ahead COR2 images. The source of the first CME was located on the farside of the Sun. The second plasma cloud was the result of a filament liftoff near Sunspot 1450. The plasma cloud appears to be
A magnetic filament connected to sunspot AR1450 erupted on April 2nd, hurling a faint CME in the direction of Earth. This CME has a northerly trajectory and is not expected to be geoeffective. However, a weak impact is expected sometime on April 4th as it can be seen
The first sprites of summer are starting to appear in the skies of North America. It looks like the sprite season is beginning early this year – summer is almost three months away. Sprites are electrical discharges that come out of the top of thunderclouds,
The active region (AR 1429), the source of many strong flares and geomagnetic storms in the beginning of March 2012, has completed its journey around the Sun and is peaking over the Eastern limb of the Sun. But it is not nearly the behemoth it was four weeks ago.The
Recent research shows that the space age has coincided with a period of unusually high solar activity, called a grand maximum. Isotopes in ice sheets and tree rings tell us that this grand solar maximum is one of 24 during the last 9300 years and suggest the high
Solar activity is currently at low levels. All sunspots on the Earth facing side of the Sun remain stable. A small new sunspot looks to be forming to the west of 1445 in the southern hemisphere. Old and active Sunspot 1429 will begin to re-emerge off the eastern limb
Return of the Sunspot 1429 to Earth side is due in evening hours of March 28th by UTC, meaning further increase of an M-class event.Sunspot 1429 produced a number of significant and strong solar flares during mid March and is still very active. On March 26th
In morning of March 24, a near M-Class flare took place around Sunspot 1445 at around 08:50-09:00 UTC. There was a gap in data on the GOES X-Ray Flux graph, however it was picked up on the EVE Diode X-Ray signal. Comparing it to yesterday’s M1.0, it looks like this
The recent solar activity did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. Researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years. Although the influx of
