I find the Sun is an engaging mystery. Be it an Eclipse, the surprising appearance during a bleak PacificNW winter or the break through moment it appears from the fog, I am continuously amazed.
We are now in the 25th solar cycle and the sun is actively stirring her surface gasses. Here is an image from April 11th when this C5.9 eruption was captured.
It was followed by a slow but spectacular long duration event (LDE) just beyond the Sun's northeast limb. The eruption got no flare designation, but peaked at 21:00UTC reaching a maximum intensity of C5.9. The event lasted for a whopping 6 hours from 18:30UTC until 00:30UTC on 12 April. At that time impressive post-eruption coronal loops could be seen towering above the solar limb. The compilation underneath combines extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images from GOES/SUVI 094 (GOES Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center ), showing the Sun at multi-million degrees, with those from GOES/SUVI 171 which display the Sun at a temperature of 700.000 degrees. The colors used are respectively purple/blue and yellow. The images are rotated by 90 degrees such that east is on top and north to the right. This provides a better view on the entire east limb, with a lot of dynamics going on in the Sun's outer atmosphere (the "corona"), as shown in SUVI's wide field-of-view. Note there is still a trans-equatorial connection between active regions in the northern and southern hemisphere, as can be gauged from the bridging coronal loops in the background. This was also the case during the previous solar rotation, between NOAA 3614 and 3615, as mentioned in this newsflash (Teamwork | STCE ) and in the online version of this newsitem (Eye pleaser | STCE ).
The strongest flare of this week is a M5.4. The source of the flare was just behind the Sun's
northeastern limb. Find a SWAP movie of the event here: https://proba2.sidc.be/swap/movies/20240411_swap_movie.mp4
Clearly some of this fascination is routed in my radio experiences. Black-Outs of radio communications was a problem when out on the water and relying on radio signals to assist in navigation/communication.
Here is a link to just what a M5.9 solar flare means, regarding radio communications (specifically SSB HighFrequency - HF disruptions).
We are now in the 25th solar cycle and the sun is actively stirring her surface gasses. Here is an image from April 11th when this C5.9 eruption was captured.
It was followed by a slow but spectacular long duration event (LDE) just beyond the Sun's northeast limb. The eruption got no flare designation, but peaked at 21:00UTC reaching a maximum intensity of C5.9. The event lasted for a whopping 6 hours from 18:30UTC until 00:30UTC on 12 April. At that time impressive post-eruption coronal loops could be seen towering above the solar limb. The compilation underneath combines extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images from GOES/SUVI 094 (GOES Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center ), showing the Sun at multi-million degrees, with those from GOES/SUVI 171 which display the Sun at a temperature of 700.000 degrees. The colors used are respectively purple/blue and yellow. The images are rotated by 90 degrees such that east is on top and north to the right. This provides a better view on the entire east limb, with a lot of dynamics going on in the Sun's outer atmosphere (the "corona"), as shown in SUVI's wide field-of-view. Note there is still a trans-equatorial connection between active regions in the northern and southern hemisphere, as can be gauged from the bridging coronal loops in the background. This was also the case during the previous solar rotation, between NOAA 3614 and 3615, as mentioned in this newsflash (Teamwork | STCE ) and in the online version of this newsitem (Eye pleaser | STCE ).
The strongest flare of this week is a M5.4. The source of the flare was just behind the Sun's
northeastern limb. Find a SWAP movie of the event here: https://proba2.sidc.be/swap/movies/20240411_swap_movie.mp4
Clearly some of this fascination is routed in my radio experiences. Black-Outs of radio communications was a problem when out on the water and relying on radio signals to assist in navigation/communication.
Here is a link to just what a M5.9 solar flare means, regarding radio communications (specifically SSB HighFrequency - HF disruptions).
