SOLAR ACTIVITY SURGES: A sunspot on the sun's eastern limb is crackling with powerful X-class solar flares. It announced itself with an X1.7-class eruption on May 13th at 0217 UT, quickly followed by an X2.8-class flare at 1609 UT. These are the strongest flares of 2013, and they signal a significant uptick in solar activity. More eruptions are in the offing.
Both of today's flares have produced strong flashes of extreme ultraviolet radiation. Here is the view of the X1.7-flare from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
The explosions also hurled coronal
mass ejections (CMEs) into space. Coronagraphs onboard
the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory are tracking
the clouds: movie.
The planet in the CME movie is Mercury. Although
the CMEs appear to hit Mercury, they do not. In
fact, no planets were in the line of fire. However,
the CMEs appear to be on course to hit NASA's Epoxi
and Spitzer spacecraft on May 15-16.
When the flaring began, the sunspot
was hidden behind the sun's eastern limb, but now
solar rotation is bringing the active region into
view. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory captured
this first look during the waning hours of May 13th:
The next 24 to 48 hours should reveal
much about the sunspot, including its size, magnetic
complexity, and potential for future flares. For
the moment, there is no reason to expect the explosions
to stop. Stay tuned for updates.
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