Coronal hole faces Earth, Sunspot region 2797

Monday, 18 January 2021 14:03 UTC

Coronal hole faces Earth, Sunspot region 2797

The northern hemisphere polar coronal hole which has an extension southwards has been facing Earth the past few days. A solar wind stream flowing from this coronal hole is expected to influence our planet in the coming three days. Geomagnetic conditions up to a maximum of Kp4 (active geomagnetic conditions) are possible starting today up till Wednesday (20 January). Solar wind speeds of well over 500km/s were observed last month when this same coronal hole faced our planet.

Sunspot region 2797

New sunspot region 2797 has rotated into view from the south-east limb. We see at least three sunspots and some faculae which could indicate this sunspot region has decayed while on the far side. It is not a candidate to produce strong solar flares at the moment but we will keep an eye on it in case more sunspots start to develop.

Sunspot region 2797
Sunspot region 2797 as seen by SDO/HMI.

New languages

SpaceWeatherLive is now available in two new languages! Catalan and Finnish! Thank you so much Ignasi and kari for your hard work! If you would like to see SpaceWeatherLive in your language, sign up on our translation site by following this link.

SWL in Finnish
SpaceWeatherLive in Finnish.

Thank you for reading this article! Did you have any trouble with the technical terms used in this article? Our help section is the place to be where you can find in-depth articles, a FAQ and a list with common abbreviations. Still puzzled? Just post on our forum where we will help you the best we can! Never want to miss out on a space weather event or one of our news articles again? Subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and download the SpaceWeatherLive app for Android and iOS!

Latest news

Support SpaceWeatherLive.com!

A lot of people come to SpaceWeatherLive to follow the Sun's activity or if there is aurora to be seen, but with more traffic comes higher server costs. Consider a donation if you enjoy SpaceWeatherLive so we can keep the website online!

SpaceWeatherLive Pro
Support SpaceWeatherLive with our merchandise
Check out our merchandise

Latest alerts

Get instant alerts!

Space weather facts

Last X-flare2024/12/08X2.2
Last M-flare2024/12/22M1.0
Last geomagnetic storm2024/12/17Kp5+ (G1)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
November 2024152.5 -13.9
December 2024103.3 -49.2
Last 30 days115.4 -40.8

This day in history*

Solar flares
11999M7.71
22013M4.82
32023M3.33
42013M2.8
51999M2.61
DstG
11982-101G3
22014-71G1
32001-59
41987-59
51989-58G1
*since 1994

Social networks