Solar Flare's 2012

Another Solar Flare 1/23/2012

This morning, Jan. 23rd around 0359 UT, big sunspot 1402 erupted, producing a long-duration M9-class solar flare. The explosion's M9-ranking puts it on the threshold of being an X-flare, the most powerful kind. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the flare's extreme ultraviolet flash:

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft detected a CME rapidly emerging from the blast site: movie. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the leading edge of the CME will reach Earth on Jan. 24 at 14:18UT (+/- 7 hours). Their animated forecast track shows that Mars is in the line of fire, too; the CME will hit the Red Planet during the late hours of Jan. 25.

The Solar Flare from 1/19/2012

Solar protons accelerated by this morning's M9-class solar flare are streaming past Earth. On the NOAA scale of radiation storms, this one ranks S3, which means it could, e.g., cause isolated reboots of computers onboard Earth-orbiting satellites and interfere with polar radio communications. An example of satellite effects: The "snow" in this SOHO coronagraph movieis caused by protons hitting the observatory's onboard camera.

The Solar Flare from 1/19/2012 Hit Earth on 1/22/2012

The Jan. 22nd CME also disturbed Earth's ionosphere. In Atlanta, Georgia, radio engineer Pieter Ibelings monitored a 4.5 MHz CODAR (coastal radar) signal as it bounced off layers of ionization along the US east coast. "The moment of impact can be clearly seen on the CODAR radar plot," he points out:

http://spaceweather.com/

Solar blast set to hit 1/21/2012

On Thursday, January 19, 2012 there was an active sunspot that erupted , and consequently a solar flare is heading in the direction of Earth, for an arrival two days later, on Saturday, January 21/21012. The sunspot on the Sun, called sunspot 1401, erupted for over an hour, approximately at 1600 GMT. 

Another sunspot, at location sunspot 1402, occurred also on Thursday. For more on sunspot 1402, please go to Solarham.com. Consequently, a M3-class solar flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME) resulted from sunspot 1401.

Thursday's solar flare rated as a powerful M2-class sun storm on the scale used by astronomers to measure flare strength. M-class storms are powerful, but mid-range, types of solar flares. They fall between the weaker C-class flares and the most powerful X-class solar storms, which can pose a threat to satellites and astronauts in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage infrastructure on Earth when aimed directly at the planet.

SDO mission scientists have said that sunspot group 1401 has been unleashing solar flares almost daily as the sun's rotation slowly turned the solar hotspot toward Earth in recent days. On Wednesday (Jan. 18), the region unleashed an M1.7-class solar flare.

A solar flare is an sudden brightening of the Sun’s surface, which releases enormous amounts of energy, upwards of one-sixth of the total energy output of the Sun in one second.


A M3-class is a strong solar flare, with rankings going from A, B, C, M, and X, from weakest to strongest of peak flux (rate of flow across an area), and 1 to 9 (weakest to strongest), where 2 is twice as strong as 1.