Sunspot region 2473, Site upgrades

Sunday, 27 December 2015 16:54 UTC

Sunspot region 2473

Sunspot region 2473 is currently the most complex sunspot region on the Earth-facing solar disk and it is actually in a great position right now to launch coronal mass ejections our way. The problem is, is that it's fairly quiet and there haven't been any M-class solar flares since an M1.1 solar flare on the 24th.

The big question is: can it produce an M-class solar flare in the next 48 hours while it's in an excellent Earth-facing position? Well, to be honest... the way this sunspot region is looking right now I wouldn't count too much on it. It has been showing signs of decay and there used to be a delta area in it's intermediate layout but that looks to be in the process of ripping itself apart. C-class solar flares remain likely but we want more magnetic mixing for strong solar flares. On the images below you can see how the opposite polarities (red and blue) are fairly seperated. That is something we don't want to see if we want strong solar flares. Let's hope we see some new flux emergence in the coming hours and more magnetic mixing!

Site upgrades

We have also been busy this month with some website upgrades. We launched a freshened up layout, rearranging some stuff and make it even prettier then before. We hope you like our new look.

The biggest change here on SpaceWeatherLive that you might have noticed already must have been the graphs. We have brought in some new, neat and fancy looking graphs with some interesting features: when hovering over the graph with your mouse or with your finger on a smartphone you will be able to see the exact values of the specified time. We think these new graphs are awesome and hope you agree they look better than ever before! Leave a comment if you wish, we love to hear your opinion!

Advent calendar

Also be sure to check our advent calendar while you still can! All the presents have been revealed and are yours to open! Enjoy!