What a difference a day can make. On Saturday, Sept. 2nd, sunspot AR2673 was an unremarkable speck largely ignored by forecasters. On Sunday, Sept. 3rd, it underwent a furious transformation. Play this movie and watch what happens to the tiny sunspot:
AR2673 expanded more than 10-fold in a single day, suddenly becoming one of the largest sunspots of the year. It has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for strong M-class solar flares. Any such explosion today would be geoeffective as the active region is directly facing Earth. Possible outcomes include moderately-strong shortwave radio blackouts, Earth-directed CMEs and geomagnetic storms later this week.
Amateur astronomers with safely-filtered solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments.
No comments:
Post a Comment