This past week has been the most exciting and active one on the Sun since I have been a solar astronomer. We have had 6 major X Class solar flares from the same active region and 16 or 17 M class flares from one of the largest Sunspot groupings in history. This situation is unprecedented in modern solar astronomy. There was also a strange unclear or foggy patch of chromosphere just to the right of this AR the entire time. I have heard nothing of this area and dont know if it is noteworthy or not. it certainly seemed unusual every time I watched it through the telescopes with the students. I feel extremely privileged that I was (with the support of donors to CBSAP) able to set my scopes up at two very large solar astronomy outreach events and share this with hundreds of people who had never seen this type of ferocity on the Sun. Most of them had never even seen the Sun at all through a telescope. I am certain that several of these people will continue on, inspired by this major storm, to pursue more scientific knowledge and perhaps some of their lives have been affected positively by this experience. It seemed that every time I setup the scopes, AR2192 was actively flaring. Strangely, there was only one or two Coronal Mass Ejections triggered by this massive solar storm. Normally, even a small flare will cause the Sun to release a large portion of its supercharged Corona in the direction of the flare. These CMEs are what causes the geomagnetic affects on Earth. There were numerous blackouts of HF frequencies from the X ray radiation of the flares, but none of the damaging CMEs. Very unusual. I made a video using the free shareware at jhelioviewer.org of NASAs tracking of this weeks events. I hope you enjoy it. This science is far from certain and it is wide open for exploration. There is NOTHING more important to our existence as humans on this planet than the Sun and this week has made it abundantly clear that we know almost nothing about its behavior...YES!! https://youtube/watch?v=yTWIDnY6t6c
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 09:55:09 +0000
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