Sunspot Complex 4294 & 4296, Solar (In)Activity & Lost In Space?

Teerasak Thaluang ~ ICQ Comet Observations 

 

Nasa: We can't do anything while the government is shut down

Humanity: Fool me once, shame on me

Nasa: *showing blobby images in self-aggrandising livestream*

Humanity: Fool me twice, shame on you

Nasa: We lost contact with Maven

Humanity: !?!?!?🤬

😂 To be fair though, the craft is way past its intended operations timeframe, although the timing is suspect. 

If there's any good that's resulted from this entire fiasco, it's that this is another awakening episode for Humanity as huge numbers of people are cottoning on to the deceptions and suppression of information or even disinformation.

Moving on.... 

As we can see from this image below, the behemoth Sunspot complex of 4294 and 4296 has rotated away from the Earth-facing direction and is no longer in view. The high Solar activity that was expected from this Sunspot complex did not materialise ~ in fact, it was decidedly quiet, defying all predictions. What I found intriguing is that this same Sunspot complex was very active before it turned towards the Earth-facing position, and all the while as it was moving across the Earth-facing direction, it calmed down considerably. 

SpaceWeatherLive

There are still plenty of CMEs like this one below, but they are not Earth-facing:

SpaceWeatherLive

Namarie! 💛

A Watch On Current Sunspot Complex 4294 & 4296

SpaceWeather

This is like a PSA/reminder post about the super-behemoth Sunspots situation, of which most of you would already be aware. An excerpt from SpaceWeather, please read the full article at their site:

The image shows Carrington's drawing of the 1859 sunspot inserted to scale on a Dec. 2, 2025, image of sunspot complex 4294-4296. They're about the same size. The surface area of Carrington's sunspot was ~2300 millionths of the solar disk. The surface area of 4294-4296 is 2080 millionths, about 90% as large. 

This Sunspot complex is already Earth-facing. 

In today's "technological" climate, an extreme Solar flare would render most infrastructure useless. Shops may not be able to open for business temporarily as most things would be offline.

It would be prudent and practical to have essential supplies in stock in case such an event occurs. So far that Sunspot complex has been relatively quiet.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking if the "shield" that I mentioned here is related to the potential extreme Solar conditions:

 

Namarie! 💗 

X4.05 & Solar Activity ~ 14 November 2025

SpaceWeatherLive

* Updated 15 November 2025: Added CME clip *

Well, we knew our Sun wasn't quite done yet 😅 That's an X4.05, the sixth X-class flare since 4 November 2025. 

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

 

No CME data yet, I will update when available. The Solar storm has cleared up so we will be able to get clear images. (Update: See CME clip at bottom of post)

We had almost 2 days of strong geomagnetic storms:

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

 ....with extremely high Solar wind speeds:

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

There are nearly off-the-charts readings for Solar wind density and temperatures as well, please view them here.

 

So....how's everyone doing? 😅

Namarie! 💙 

Update 15 November 2025:

Space.com

Severe Solar storms like the ones we had with the recent X5.16 are not expected as this CME wasn't directly Earth-facing. Please head over to Space.com for the article.

 

X5.16 ~ 11 November 2025: Part 2

EarthSky

EarthSky

Look at the magnitude of that X5.16! Small wonder then that strong showers of Solar particles have been swarming satellites post-flare:

SpaceWeather

 

This was the CME that birthed from the X5.16:

SpaceWeatherLive

And since then until at this time of writing, this is what is showing:

SpaceWeatherLive

SpaceWeather reports an on-going Ground Level Event:

A 'GROUND LEVEL EVENT' IS UNDERWAY: Yesterday's X5-class solar flare from sunspot 4274 hurled a fusillade of energetic protons toward Earth. Some of the particles are so powerful, they are penetrating the atmosphere all the way to the ground. "This is a very significant event," says Professor Clive Dyer of the Surrey Space Centre. "Neutron monitors around the world are detecting it."  

Please read the article at their site here.

 

I added this afterthought to Part 1:

This makes it five X-class flares since 4 November 2025. I can't help but notice that we've not had any X-class flares for months since 20 June 2025....then our Sun belches out five in a span of 8 days....soon after its rendezvous with 3I/Atlas on Perihelion 29 October 2025.  

 

Namarie! 🩵

Solar Activity ~ 12 November 2025

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

Yikes. Again. 

This is the on-going Solar storm that was predicted:

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/wsa-enlil-solar-wind-prediction

Radial Velocity is at the white band, and this is forecast for later, where we're in the black band, about 1400km/s:

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/wsa-enlil-solar-wind-prediction

 

The animation below suggests that 3 different CMEs merged together, resulting in the expected situation later today:

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/wsa-enlil-solar-wind-prediction

The first two (red and white) were CMEs hurled out prior to the X5.1 flare, which itself produced the third one (black) that is expected to catch up and join the other two, with all three merging together. They call it a Cannibal CME but I'll just use the term "merge", thanks.

 

It's very choppy out in Space-Sea:

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/geospace-magnetosphere-movies

We are in a Plasma Tidal Wave.
 

I'll finish up here and move on to the next post.

Namarie! 💙

 

X5.16 ~ 11 November 2025: Part 1

SpaceWeatherLive

 

Yikes. An X5.16 😯  This just occurred so I can't find much else, but I do hope there will be a video of this flare, it's a strong one ~ the strongest since 31 October 2024 (X2.03). And look at the time-stamp....it's 11-11 at one hour short of 11:00am.

This makes it five X-class flares since 4 November 2025. I can't help but notice that we've not had any X-class flares for months since 20 June 2025....then our Sun belches out five in a span of 8 days....soon after its rendezvous with 3I/Atlas on Perihelion 29 October 2025.

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

 

Radio blackout:

SpaceWeatherLive

I believe we'll get quite a bit more data on this soon.

Namarie! 💜 

X1.7 Flare: 9 November 2025

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

That's the third X-class flare this week.

This could be the related CME:

SpaceWeatherLive

Namarie! 💖

 

Solar Activity ~ 5 - 8 November 2025

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

It's been intermittently stormy for the past few days, starting from the final hours of 5 November 2025 (images above and below ~ I do not currently have the mental, emotional and physical capacity to merge the graphs as I usually do, hence separate they remain 😆):

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

....with corresponding high-speed Solar winds:

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

 

Our Sun is still churning out gargantuan CMEs, like this recent one on 7 November 2025:

SpaceWeatherLive

Earlier on the same day (7th), our Planet was swathed in high Plasma density ~ this was the same timeframe as those high-speed Solar winds:

SpaceWeatherLive

 

Namarie! 💟 

Solar Activity & X-Class Flares ~ 4 & 5 November 2025

SpaceWeather

Ooooh....after intently focussing on other Planets for more than 4 months, our Sun has turned its attention to Earth. We had two X-class flares in a row yesterday 4 November and there was an M-7.4 flare just now, chart shown below:

© Laboratory of Solar Astronomy, SRI RAS

The clip above shows the two X-class flares ~ X1.8 & X1.1. Based on the assumption that there were several energetic interactions with 3I/Atlas with all those CMEs hurled towards it, these flares would certainly carry some interesting frequencies and Cosmic codes.

For more details about the X-class flares, please visit SpaceWeather.

SpaceWeather also reports that we would be expecting some Earth-facing CMEs soon, bearing in mind that our Sun has been spewing colossal non-Earth-facing CMEs daily over the past weeks.

Here are two recent ones:

SpaceWeather

SpaceWeather

What we may expect around the 8th: 

SpaceWeatherLive

 Namarie! 💚

 

Perihelion Solar Activity & 3I/Atlas Update

SpaceWeatherLive

We have CMEs galore around 3I/Atlas' perhelion on 29 October 2025 ~ here are some examples for each day between 28 October (above) and 31 October 2025:

SpaceWeather

SpaceWeather

SpaceWeatherLive

SpaceWeather has the following update on 3I/Atlas ~ it's ironic that we're getting data about this Visitor from mediums other than the ones who should be updating us. Even previous sightings made available to the public have come from amateur Astronomers instead of "official sites".

RAPID BRIGHTENING OF COMET 3I/ATLAS: Spacecraft monitoring the sun witnessed a dramatic surge in the brightness of Comet 3I/ATLAS as it plunged toward its Oct. 29th perihelion. Qicheng Zhang (Lowell Observatory) and Karl Battams (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory) reported the phenomenon in a preprint submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Oct. 28th.

"The reason for 3I’s rapid brightening, which far exceeds the brightening rate of most Oort cloud comets, remains unclear," the authors say. 

SpaceWeather

Please continue reading the rest of the article over at SpaceWeather.

 

And here are the current positions of the 6+1 Comets/Pseudo-Comet in our Inner Solar System right now (2 November 2025), the new addition being 164P/Christensen:

The Sky Live

Namarie! 💙

CMEs & Comets

The Sky Live

The positions of the above four Comets now.... 

3I/Atlas isn't shown in the above diagram, but here it is below ~ perihelion is 29 October:

The Sky Live

And Comet Wierzchos ~ also not shown in main diagram ~ is quite close to Comet Lemmon:

The Sky Live

 

Our Sun has been spewing massive CMEs continuously for some days now. Here are just some examples, all of the data is taken from SpaceWeatherLive.

26 Oct 2025 ~ what are those black streaks?

25-26 Oct 2025

23-24 Oct 2025

22 Oct 2025

And remember we also had a super-humongous one on 21 October!

Sun-Comets-3I/Atlas interactions happening.

Namarie! 💙