VIDEO: Today three years ago - the strongest solar flare of this cycle so far. Watch the video of this event on our YouTube channel and be sure to subscribe! Solar cycle 24 is unfortunately not as active as previous cycles. We have yet to see solar flares above the X10 class, so called super X-class flares, but that doesnt mean that this cycle has been completely void of strong solar flares. As a matter of fact, the strongest solar flare of this cycle so far occurred today exactly 3 years ago. Sunspot group 1263 let loose a massive X6.9 solar flare. The associated CME was however relatively minor compared with the maximum X-ray flux and was directed away from Earth as this region was already near the western limb. The strongest solar flare this year was actually not that far away from being the strongest solar flare of this cycle thus far. On February 25, 2014, sunspot region 1990 produced an X4.9 solar flare. This was the third strongest solar flare of this cycle and the associated CME sparked aurorae visible from a lot of middle latitude locations in Europe. And how is the Sun looking today you ask? Well, there are some sunspot regions of the disk but none of them are really worth mentioning. Solar activity will likely be low in the coming 24 hours. It is likely that we still have to wait a while for the next X-class flare. For more information regarding past events be sure to take a look in our archive and visit the top 50 strongest solar flares page: spaceweatherlive/en/archive/ and spaceweatherlive/en/solar-activity/top-50-solar-flares Credits: footage from NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (Little SDO) and SOHO. Data from GOES and the NOAA SWPC. Music: Sound Critters - Sunparticles.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 20:26:40 +0000
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