October 19, 2014
Sunspot group, AR12192, released a strong burst of magnetic energy in the form of an X1.1 flare and a surge of solar plasma. The solar flare peaked in the GOES X-ray monitor at 5:01 UT, 10/19/2014. There was no significant […]
August 29, 2014
The Fall 2014 Eclipse SDO Eclipse Season starts today. Around 7:30 UT (2:30 EDT) each day for the next 3 weeks (until Sept. 21), Earth will pass between the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the sun. The first eclipse is only […]
June 30, 2014
The active sun is rotating into view, that could mean there is solar fun to come. For the past 2 weeks that sun has been a bit quiet but that is only because the regions of current solar activity were […]
June 17, 2014
A giant filament on the eastern edge of the sun really puts the size of our star, Earth and the planets into perspective. This structure of solar plasma, a billion plus tons of 80,000 degree Fahrenheit material, sits high above […]
June 5, 2014
A huge filament on the southeast of the sun erupted towards the end of June 4. The filament was somewhere between a whopping 500,000 – 1 million km in length. This eruption produced a fairly slow coronal mass ejection that […]
February 28, 2014
It’s that time of year. SDO spring eclipse season started February 27, 2014. During the 3 week season, Earth will pass between SDO and the Sun around 07:30 UT each day. Initially the eclipses are a few minutes long. Their […]
January 29, 2014
AR11967 continues to stay lively. In less than 24 hours on Jan. 28, it produced 7 M-class solar flares. The largest flare was an M4.9 at 19:00 UT. Here is a video of composite 304, 171 and 193 angstrom SDO/AIA […]
January 28, 2014
Sunspot group or active region AR11944 that gave us such a show at the beginning of the year is back. After taking its trip around the sun it has rotated onto the Earth facing solar disk and NOAA has labeled it […]
October 30, 2013
The sun has been really active lately. SDO gives us an amazing view of this activity in many different wavelengths of light. This also shows us the sun’s atmosphere in many temperatures ranging from ~4500 Kelvin or 7600 degrees Fahrenheit […]
September 30, 2013
A huge filament erupted from the sun producing a beautiful coronal mass ejection (CME) and solar energetic particle event. Around 21 UT, 9/29/2013 a filament erupted from the northwest quadrant of the sun. It started from the surface with a […]
August 20, 2013
There may be a geomagnetic storm in store for Earth. Lookout aurora watchers! A filament ~50 Earths in length (~400,000 miles) erupted from the Sun’s southern hemisphere in the southwest direction around 7:24 UT (4:24 am EDT). The eruption produced […]
August 17, 2013
A long duration M3.3 flare with a beautiful eruption and CME! Active region AR11818 produced a flare peaking in X-ray at 18:24 UT (2:24 pm EDT). The eruption produced extended X-ray emission with another flare, ~M1.5 after the initial eruption […]
May 14, 2013
The active region that could, has again given us an X flare! That makes 4! 12:15 UT – The NASA GSFC Space Weather Research Center has estimated that the CME may give a glancing blow to Epoxi (~5/18/2013 06:00 UT) and […]
November 7, 2012
An M1.7 flare peaked at 02:23 UT, November 8, 2012. This is not really a big flare but everybody’s attention picks up when the activity level reached M-class (mine included). I don’t yet know where the event came […]
June 29, 2012
Over the past 24 hours, sunspot group AR11513 has increased in complexity, producing several C-class flares and 2 M-class flares, an M2.4 on June 28 at 16:07 and an M2.2 on June 29 at 9:10 UT . Both AR11513 and […]
March 6, 2012
Sunspot group, AR11429, started off its journey across the Earth facing side of the Sun with several bangs. First it produced an M flare on March 2 at 17:29 UT (with a CME) then came another M flare (with a […]
March 5, 2012
Sunspot group AR11429! Here is a look at AR11429 from Friday to today showing the 2 M-class and 1 X-class flare blasting away from the Sun. In addition to those events and their associated CMEs there is a lot of […]