For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released today during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.
Yesterday, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory witnessed a spectacular explosion on the sun that seemed to pass perilously close to Venus.As the movie shows, the CME passed harmlessly. There was no collision, and it wasn’t even close. Although Venus seems to be
A big new sunspot is emerging over the sun's northeastern limb. AR1271 has at least four dark cores and it is crackling with small flares. The sunspot's entrance was captured in this 24-hour movie from the Solar Dynamics Observatory: NOAA forecasters…
After a few days of quiet, the sun is coming alive again. Amateur astronomers around the world report a beautiful complex of prominences dancing along the eastern limb, one of them big enough to swallow Earth:The blue dot is merely a digital image of Earth inserted
Active sunspot 1263, which just two days ago produced the most powerful solar flare of the new Solar Cycle (an X7), has left the Earthside of the sun. It is now beginning a two week transit across the solar farside. We can still see signs of its ongoing activity,
This morning at 08:05 UTC, sunspot 1263 produced an X6.9 solar flare, the third X-flare of new Solar Cycle 24 and the most powerful so far. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash:The brunt of the ex
The largest solar flare of Cycle 24 just took place at 08:05 UTC and it registered a whopping X6.9. The source was Sunspot 1263 which is nearing the Western Limb. Because of its location, any large explosions may not be fully earth directed. When watching new video
A second M-Class flare, this time a M2.5 took place at 03:54 UTC Tuesday morning around Sunspot 1263. This is in addition to the earlier M3.5 flare which we reported yesterday. The first flare produced a small, but fast moving (2010 km/s) Coronal Mass Ejection…
At 18:10 UTC Monday, a short duration M3.5 Solar Flare took place around Sunspot 1263. Because of its location, any explosions at this point may not be earth directed.Just when solar activity was slowing down, an M3.5 Solar Flare took place around Sunspot 1263
Behemoth sunspot 1263 has almost doubled in size this weekend. A 28-hour movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the spot developing a tail that has added some 50,000 km of length to the active region.This development may increase the likelihood of a stro
