July 31 2012 CME Class M6 Flare to Impact Earth's Magnetosphere Today HD

  
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A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by Saturday's M6-class flare is heading toward Earth. According to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud could deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field today,  July 31st around 1500 UT (+/- 7 hours).
This is a slow-moving CME. The cloud's low speed (382 km/s estimated) combined with its glancing trajectory suggests a weak impact is in the offing. Nevertheless, polar geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives. Aurora alerts: text, voice.
The CME will also hit Mercury, probably with greater force. Mercury's planetary magnetic field is only ~10% as strong as Earth's, so Mercury is not well protected from CMEs. When the clouds hit, they can actually scour atoms off Mercury's surface, adding material to Mercury's super-thin atmosphere and comet-like tail.
ScienceCasts: Mars Landing Sky Show
On the same night Curiosity lands on Mars, a "Martian Triangle" will appear in sunset skies of Earth. The first-magnitude apparition on August 5th gives space fans something to do while they wait for news from the Red Planet.
NASA Portal for Mars: http://www.nasa.gov/mars
Visit http://science.nasa.gov/ for more.
Also YouTube: http://youtu.be/QrxCA1leQyY
Thank you for watching.

July 23 2012 AR11520 Parting Shot & The Wizard Takes Flight HD

  
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A coronal mass ejection (CME) blasted away from the sun this morning with rare speed: 2930 km/s or 6.5 million mph. CMEs moving this fast occur only once every ~5 to 10 years. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud's emergence on July 23rd starting around 0300 UT:

The source of the CME was sunspot AR1520, which sparked many bright auroras earlier this month when it was on the Earth side of the sun. Now, however, the active region is transiting the sun's farside so this blast was not geoeffective. One can only imagine the geomagnetic storms such a fast CME could produce if it were heading our way. Stay tuned for additional analysis.

According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, this CME will miss all of the solar system's inner planets.

Thank you for watching and have a very enjoyable week.

Sorry for the delay. We had a nasty thunderstorm and loss of connection to tower.

July 19 2012 Class M7.7 CME and Radiation Storm HD

  
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Sunspot complex AR1520-1521 erupted again on July 19th, this time producing an M7.7 class solar flare that almost crossed the threshold into X-territory. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash.
The explosion produced a bright coronal mass ejection:

Although the explosion occured on the other side of the sun's western limb, our planet could feel some effects. The blast site is magnetically connected to Earth by backward-spiraling lines of magnetic force. Protons accelerated by the flare are being guided to us by those lines of magnetism, and a radiation storm is underway.
Thank you for watching and have a great day.
Trudi

July 18 2012 Class M1.8 CME Earthbound, The Gift that keeps on Giving ...

  
In all the years I've been looking at the sun I have never observed a CME that doesn't know when to quit. So after two hours we said wow two hours, but the two hours became three and then five. That was yesterday when AR11520 first flare out in a minor class C flare immediately followed by class M1.8 CME. The last time I checked it's still going.

In the meantime while waiting and observing, cleaning my monitor, cleaning my keyboard, filing my nails, I noticed this one huge flare erupt North, North/West of the limb, reach down towards the hemisphere and recoil back to ... wait ... the back of the sun? What the ...... ?
Without further hesitation I called on the ever faithful stand by STEREO B to take a peek behind the sun and there was the flare wanting a little spotlight for itself. I couldn't refuse.
Sunspot complex AR1520-1521 erupted on July 17th at 1715 UT. The M1-class explosion unfolded slowly over a period of hours. Slow explosions often produce CMEs, and this one was no exception; SOHO recorded the bright and massive cloud: According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Venus on July 19th and could deliver a glancing blow to Earth on July 20th.

July 15 2012 Comet 96PMachholz & Class M1.0 Flare HD

  
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Forecaster Comments: Level 5 - A significant event located on the Sun facing Earth took place on July 12. The effects of this event has affected earth's magnetosphere.
Observers in North America should continue to watch for aurora on the nights of the 15th and 16th local time. Depending on the configuration of the disturbance, auroras may be visible for entire Canada and as far south as the middle tier of the States.
 Activity may remain high also on the 16th. Auroras should be visible Southern New Zealand, Tasmania, and of course, Antarctica.


GEOMAGNETIC STORM: A fast-moving CME hit Earth's magnetic field on July 14th at approximately 1800 UT. The impact was not as strong as forecasters expected. Nevertheless, July 14th CME blow compressed Earth's magnetosphere and sparked a mild (Kp=5) geomagnetic storm, in progress. So far, few sightings of auroras have been reported.

Discovered in 1986, Comet 96P/Machholz is a fascinating comet that has passed through SOHO coronagraph images four times now," says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab. "It's not a huge comet but it is very photogenic, and puts on quite a display with its beautiful dusty tail."

In an essay posted on his web site, Battams explains why the comet is so fascinating. Many researchers suspect 96P/Machholz is not a native of our solar system; some chemical evidence suggests it came from another star. Also, 96P/Machholz appears to be dynamically related (that is, the comet's orbit is related) to a diverse collection of other objects in the solar system including asteroid 2003 EH1 and the Quadrantid, Southern Delta Aquariid, and daytime Arietid meteoroid streams. All of these things--the asteroid, the comet, and the meteoroids--might be fragments of a single "foreign" body that broke apart thousands of years ago.

Comet 96P/Machholz will be visible in SOHO coronagraphs until July 17th. Battams believes the comet will reach a peak brightness of 2nd magnitude--not its best show. "But who knows," he says, "maybe Comet Machholz will do something completely and utterly unexpected like fragment into a swarm of Machholzlets." Join SOHO for a ringside seat.
Thank you for watching :)

July 13 2012 AR11520 Unleashes an X1.4 Class CME Earth Bound HD

 
 Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed an X1.4-class solar flare on July 12th. Because the sunspot is directly facing Earth, everything about the blast was geoeffective. For one thing, it hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward our planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Earth on July 14th around 10:20 UT (+/- 7 hours) and could spark strong geomagnetic storms. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend. Geomagnetic storm alerts: text, voice.

The explosion also strobed Earth with a pulse of extreme UV radiation.

The UV pulse partially ionized Earth's upper atmosphere, disturbing the normal propagation of radio signals around the planet. Monitoring stations in Norway, Ireland and Italy recorded the sudden ionospheric disturbance.

Finally, solar protons accelerated by the blast are swarming around Earth. The radiation storm, in progress, ranks "S1" on NOAA space weather scales, which means it poses no serious threat to satellites or astronauts. This could change if the storm continues to intensify. Stay tuned

July 11 2012 Fast Moving Solar Wind Impacting Earth's Magnetosphere HD

  
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Solar wind from Coronal Hole reached our magnetosphere today. Geomagnetic Storm Expected.
Look up for auroras
We are also still receiving the solar wind from the M and C flares hurled towards earth.

Big sunspot AR1520 has been relatively quiet for the past 24 hours, but this could be the calm before the storm. The sunspot has a delta-class magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares.
Thank you for watching and have a wonderful week.

July 7 2012 X Flares M Flares Radiation & Magnetic Storm Oh My HD

  

Well there we have it the long awaited for X eruption and it is earth bound. For days it hard harbored the energy for the largest classification of flares. At 23:08 UT on July 6, 2012 it unleashed an X1.1-class solar flare. Geomagnetic storm is expected.

Whether or not the class X1.1 flare came from the active region AR11515 or its sister sunspot AR 11514 is now being re-examined at NOAA and Goddard Space Center. Sunspot AR11514 is relatively close to its sister sunspot and being at an angle for the SDO satellite it could be confusing. From the angle SDO had captured the flare it seems to be coming from 11515 but then again maybe not.

As the source region for this flare is near the west solar limb, elevated proton fluxes are associated with it already making its mark on our geomagneticsphere.

More

The explosion hurled a CME into space. According to this clip from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO-LASCO), the cloud appears to be heading south and away from Earth. However, we cannot yet rule out a glancing blow to our planet on July 8th or 9th. Stay tuned for further analysis.

Look at the CME clip from SOHO-LASCO one more time. The speckles near the end are caused by energetic protons accelerated by the flare. Guided toward Earth by solar magnetic fields, the protons are peppering Earth-orbiting satellites, causing "snow" in imaging systems and posing a slim threat for single-event upsets (computer glitches)

We’ve had more CME’s bombarding our geomagnetosphere than it is possible to count, some did manage to break through our magnetosphere. With the class X1.1 added onto it at a high velocity wind towards earth data indicated a radiation storm around the poles, still ongoing.

Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from these coronal holes

While 11515 will still blast out X flares we can expect more of the same from this new sunspot 11519 coming around the bend and this could really interesting when two massive sunspots join forced to hurl CMEs towards us.

July 7 2012 Class X1.1 Flare Unleashed and en Route towards Earth HD

   Giant sunspot AR1515 unleashed a strong X1.1-class solar flare on July 6th at 2308 UT. Because Earth is well-connected to the blast site by solar magnetic fields, a fusillade of protons accelerated by the explosion might soon reach our planet. Stay tuned for updates.
Sunspot AR1515 has grown into a behemoth more than 10 times wider than Earth. The active region is crackling with M-class solar flares and seems poised to produce even stronger X-flares in the days ahead. At least two CMEs are en route to Earth, and ham radio operators are reporting shortwave solar radio bursts roaring from the loudspeakers of their receivers.

Update with details to follow on the X class solar flare a.s.a.p.

A Moment In My Life HD

July 4 2012 AR 11515 is Exploding with Unstoppable M Class CMEs and C So...

    4TH OF JULY FIREWORKS: Chances of an X-flare today are increasing as sunspot AR1515 develops a 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for the most powerful explosions. The sunspot's magnetic canopy is crackling with almost-X class flares, the strongest so far being an M5-flare at 09:54 UT. Each "crackle" releases more energy than a billion atomic bombs, so these are 4th of July fireworks indeed.

The sunspot itself is huge, stretching more than 100,000 km (8 Earth-diameters) from end to end. This movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the behemoth growing and turning toward Earth over the past five days.
If any major eruptions do occur today, they will certainly be Earth-directed. The sunspot is directly facing our planet, so it is in position to cause radio blackouts, sudden ionospheric disturbances, and geomagnetic storms.
Happy 4th of July to all my American Friends
Wish you all a fabulous week and thank you for watching.

July 2 2012 Class M5.6 Solar Flare The Passionate Sun HD

   

A big, active sunspot (AR1515) is growing on the Earthside of the sun. This morning it erupted, producing an M5.6-class solar flare that ionized Earth's upper atmosphere with a brief but intense pulse of X-rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation. More eruptions are in the offing as the sunspot turns to face Earth.

Life awakens and reaches up towards the sun receiving its energy caressed in the morning dew.

Each plant life, each rose, all mammals whether bipedal or walking on fours. Even birds and life in the ocean we are all made of the same stuff the sun is made of, star matter, you and I. We rejoice in the sunlight, noises of laughter, a car-horn sounds in the distance, shut off the music and consider the sound of the sun for a moment. An ordinary star but far from being plain. She is passionate beyond comprehension, an enigma, complex is still a tame word. She is fiery, impulsive and keeps us guessing, she is the biproduct of her own reflection, pretty sometimes but you can never be sure.

Trudi