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Thursday, September 8, 2011

UPDATE: Another day of VERY active solar activity with an M-Class Flare.

UPDATE: 9-8-2011
3:16PM GMT
SOLAR RADIO BURSTS: This week's sharp increase in solar activity has turned the sun into a radio transmitter. Bursts of shortwave static are coming from the unstable magnetic canopy of sunspot 1283.

Tuesday in New Mexico, amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded some samples at 21 MHz: listen. Radio listeners should remain alert for this kind of solar activity as sunspot 1283 continues to seethe.

STRONG FLARE ACTIVITY CONTINUES: On Sept. 8th at 1546 UT, sunspot 1283 unleashed an M6-class solar flare. This continues the active region's 3-day trend of daily powerful eruptions. Yesterday's blast, an X1.8-class event, produced a bright flash of extreme UV radiation and hurled an inky-dark plume of plasma into space. Click to view the movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
Since Sept. 6th, sunspot 1283 has propelled at least three CMEs in the general direction of Earth. Glancing blows from the incoming clouds will commence sometime on Sept. 9th and continue through Sept. 11th, possibly sparking minor geomagnetic storms. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.
http://spaceweather.com/
******************END UPDATE********************************************


UPDATE: 9-7-2011
8:30PM GMT
ANOTHER X-FLARE: Earth-orbiting satellites have detected another strong flare from sunspot 1283. The X1.8 category blast occured at 2238 UT on Sept. 7th. [SDO movie]
*******************************END UPDATE******************************

SOLAR RADIO BURSTS: This week's sharp increase in solar activity has turned the sun into a radio transmitter. Bursts of shortwave static are coming from the unstable magnetic canopy of sunspot 1283. Yesterday in New Mexico, amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded some samples at 21 MHz: listen. Radio listeners should remain alert for this kind of solar activity as sunspot 1283 continues to seethe.


STRONG SOLAR ACTIVITY: Sunspot 1283 is crackling with solar flares. Yesterday, Sept. 6th, the active region produced an M5.3-class eruption at 0150 UT followed by a X2.1-class event at 2220 UT. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded this extreme UV flash from the X-flare:
The flares produced waves of ionization in Earth's upper atmosphere, briefly altering the propagation of low-frequency radio signals around our planet. Moreover, the two eruptions hurled clouds of plasma (CMEs) in our direction. CME impacts, geomagnetic storms and auroras are expected on Sept. 8-10. Stay tuned for updates. Solar flare alerts: textvoice.

X-flares of Solar Cycle 24: There have been only a small number of X-flares since the beginning of new Solar Cycle 24. Here is a complete list so far: Feb. 15, 2011 (X2), March 9, 2011 (X1), Aug. 9, 2011 (X7), Sept. 6, 2011 (X2). Before these four, the previous X-flare occured on Dec.14, 2006, (X1) during old Solar Cycle 23.





3-day Solar Xray Flux graph
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/today.html#xray



Strong X2.1 Flare / Solar Update
09/06/2011 by Kevin VE3EN at 14:50 UTC
Comment on Message Board



Strong X-Class Flare:
A strong X2.1 Class Solar Flare took place at 22:20 UTC Tuesday and was centered around Sunspot 1283. Another CME looks to have resulted and a Sun facing Lasco C2 movie is below. A Type II and Type IV sweep frequency event occurred as well as a TenFlare (10.7cm Radio Burst). The proton levels are also at minor levels.

Partially Earth directed CME: When watching the new Lasco C2 movie which is below, the explosion caused by the X2.1 Solar Flare is a full halo CME and has the best chance of impacting earth in some way. The first CME created by the M5.3 will for the most part miss earth. As with any explosion, only time will tell as to what kind of impact they will have on earth. Many times they end up missing altogether.

Click HERE for an SDO image.
Click HERE for another image by EVE.
Solar Flux Correction: The solar flux value above was reading as 150. The correct value for Sept 6th is actually 112.
Solar Update: Solar activity has been high with multiple M-Class flares and one X-Class event over the past 48 hours. Two full halo Coronal Mass Ejections took place on Tuesday due to an M5.3 and X2.1 Solar Flares. Only a minor impact is expected. Sunspot 1283 may produce further M-Class activity. Elsewhere, all other sunspot groups are quiet.
http://www.solarham.com/


http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/drap/global.html

D-RAP Global (1 dB ABS)


map of global absorption predictions at 1 dB

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