Sunspot region 2205, active aurora

Tuesday, 4 November 2014 15:51 UTC

Sunspot region 2205

Sunspot region 2205 has been fairly active during the past 48 hours with four M-class solar flare including an R2 event (M6.5) peaking yesterday at 22:40 UTC. Sunspot region 2205 is still rotating into view so more sunspots might still appear from behind the limb but the spots that have rotated into view do not look very large nor does the group seem to have a very complex magnetic layout. In fact, there seems to be a lot of faculae around this sunspot region which could indicate it is in a state of decay. We nontheless have to wait at least 24 hours before we can make an accurate judgement of this sunspot region's magnetic layour as it's proximity to the limb makes it difficult to analyse, along with the fact that there might be more sunspots still behind the limb.

All the other sunspot regions on the earth-facing disk are unremarkable and unlikely to produce strong solar flares.

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Active aurora

Auroral conditions reached G1 minor geomagnetic storm levels thanks to what is likely a glancing blow coronal mass ejection passage from the 1 November filament eruption. The strength of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) increased suddenly to about 10nT yesterday and it has been fluctuating around that same level the entire day now. The direction of the IMF (Bz) was mainly northward but went mostly southward following a solar sector boundary crossing this morning at 6:30 UTC. Bz values lower than -10nT were recorded and resulted in one period of minor G1 geomagnetic storming.

G1 - Minor geomagnetic storm (Kp5o) #aurora - Follow live on http://t.co/Gj5cI2OO1z pic.twitter.com/Oq4fps2and

— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) 4 november 2014

The direction of the IMF is now again mostly northward but we can not exclude that we see another period with southward directed IMF which could boost the auroral activity up to active (Kp4) conditions. High latitude sky watchers in large parts of Scandinavia, Scotland and Finland should remain alert for aurora if the direction of the IMF turns south again in the coming hours. The stunning image below was captured just a few hours ago by Blackpaw Photography from Tasmania, Australia.

Images: NASA SDO and Blackpaw Photography.

Today 11 years ago - X28 solar flare

It is today exactly 11 years ago that sunspot region 486 erupted with a massive X28 solar flare which might have been as strong as X45 according to some sources. This was the largest solar flare in modern times and it was the end of a period known as the Halloween solar storms of 2003 with extreme aurora for several days here on Earth. Last year we made a special video to celebrate these so called ''Halloween solar storms of 2003'' and today we want to show it to you one more time.