Major X5.0 solar flare
Monday, 1 January 2024 15:16 UTC
Happy New Year to all of our visitors and fans! How do we celebrate that? With a major solar flare of course! The Sun was kind enough to produce some spectacular fireworks yesterday just two hours before UTC midnight. It was a major X5.0 (R3-strong) solar flare that peaked at 21:55 UTC. Sunspot region 3536 is the source of the eruption which is just rotating into view on the east limb. This is actually the return of sunspot region 3514 which produced an X2.8 solar flare during the previous solar rotation.
The X5.0 solar flare from sunspot region 3536 is the strongest solar flare of the current Solar Cycle (at the time of writing) and it is the strongest solar flare since September 2017. The resulting coronal mass ejection is impressive but based on the latest LASCO imagery and the location of the eruption, unlikely to impact Earth. A shock driven enhancement is not impossible with eruptions like this but the eruption occurred too close to the limb to have any kind of significant impact at Earth.
The X5.0 solar flare from sunspot region 3536 is the strongest solar flare since Sep. 2017. The resulting coronal mass ejection is impressive but based on the latest LASCO imagery and the location of the eruption, unlikely to impact Earth. pic.twitter.com/EUJQWbBrO3
— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) January 1, 2024
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