X2.2 solar flare, SDO outage
Sunday, 8 December 2024 14:12 UTC
Good morning everyone it's Sunday and the Sun is up early today with a banger! She unexpectedly produced an X2.2 solar flare which peaked at 09:06 UTC. It is sunspot region 3912 which was the source of this event.
The solar flare was impulsive but a Type II radio emission was associated with the event indicating a possible coronal mass ejection (CME) being released into space. This is indeed the case as we can see on the SOHO/LASCO coronagraph imagery below but the CME is not impressive and aimed towards the west. It is not earth-directed.
Today's surprise X2.2 solar flare came from sunspot region 3912. It peaked at 09:06 UTC and was impulsive. It did produce a minor coronal mass ejection but it is heading west and is thus not aimed at our planet. pic.twitter.com/XvTiwt9isF
— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) December 8, 2024
SDO data outage
As a lot of you noticed, there has been ongoing issues with the real time data delivery of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory which means we had to resort to alternative sources. This is because a cooling water line burst in the Stanford building housing the SDO Joint Science Operations Center which provides real time SDO imagery. The Joint Science Operations Center reports that the damage is extensive and services will not resume until 2025.
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Space weather facts
| Last X-flare | 2024/12/08 | X2.2 |
| Last M-flare | 2024/12/15 | M3.0 |
| Last geomagnetic storm | 2024/12/17 | Kp5+ (G1) |
| Spotless days | |
|---|---|
| Last spotless day | 2022/06/08 |
| Monthly mean Sunspot Number | |
|---|---|
| November 2024 | 152.5 -13.9 |
| December 2024 | 100.3 -52.3 |
| Last 30 days | 118.6 -36.7 |