New Sunspot may Hurl Dangerous Solar Flare at Earth
17 hours ago Anthony Watts 29 Comments
SpaceWeather reports:
One of the biggest sunspots in years has just rotated over the sun’s northeastern limb. AR3112 has a mixed-polarity magnetic field that harbors energy for strong X-class solar flares. The appearance of this dangerous sunspot could herald two weeks of high solar activity as it transits the Earth-facing side of the sun.
Earth-orbiting satellites have just detected an X1-class solar flare (Oct. 2nd @ 2025 UT). Ironically, it did not come from big dangerous sunspot AR3112, described below, but rather from AR3110, a smaller and apparently less threatening active region. The flare (image) produced a shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean and parts of North America (blackout map), and it may have hurled a CME into space. Stay tuned for updates. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
A BIG DANGEROUS SUNSPOT: One of the biggest sunspots in years has just rotated over the sun’s northeastern limb. Introducing, AR3112:
AR3112 has more than a dozen dark cores scattered across 130,000 km of solar terrain, making it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Don’t have a solar filter? Use the projection method, instead.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/02/new-sunspot-may-hurl-dangerous-solar-flare-at-earth/
