Flares & CMEs

Scientific Visualization Studio

Still in catch-up mode, apologies! It's been weird and wonderful and wonky all at once. It feels like there's lots of things to cover so I'll start with SR charts first.

Space Observing System

I had mentioned (here) that the charts have been exhibiting "busyness" and peculiar readings since I first noticed them around 19 January. This "busyness" has continued right until recent days (charts above). Huge readings yesterday 10 February when I saw the chart, but did not download it as I had intended to do so today (11 February). Well, unfortunately the site is inaccessible so I will upload it when it is available.

Laboratory of X-ray Astronomy of the Sun

Just a minor geomagnetic disturbance earlier today, but take a look at Solar Flaring!

Laboratory of X-ray Astronomy of the Sun

X3.3-flare on 9 February (top image) with this video showing spectacular footage of the flaring:

VideoFromSpace

 

More images:

Scientific Visualization Studio

 

From SpaceWeather:

Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, caused a strong shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean. Mariners and ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal at frequencies below 30 MHz for as much as an hour after the flare's peak.

Of greater interest is the coronal mass ejection (CME). New images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory show an assymetric halo CME with an Earth-directed component. A preliminary NASA model predicts it will reach Earth on Feb. 13th:

Look at that massive wave in the above simulation!

Let's go back to Solar Flaring. Before we had that X3-3, our Sun had been putting on a massive Light display with several C- and M-class flares:

3 February: 15 C-class flares

4 February: 12 C-class, 7 M-class

5 February: 11 C-class, 2 M-class

6 February: 5 C-class, 3 M-class

7 February: 6 C-class, 2 M-class

8 February: 10 C-class, 5 M-class

9 February: 8 C-class, 2 M-class, 1 X-class

10 February: 12 C-class, 3 M-class, one of which was M9.0

More details at Laboratory of X-ray Astronomy of the Sun.

And to round up this post, here's the CME that just erupted today, travelling at a max speed of 1951 km/sec (7,023,600 km/hr) :

SpaceWeatherLive

Phew....😅  

And Namarie! 😄💛